The Goodness of a Beast
by Cantrona
Summary: Naruto has contact with Kyuubi. She tries to help him live a better life. His life changed for the better with her help. But how will his friends react to knowing that he has a beast that talks to him in his belly? How do his parents fit into this?
1. Introductions

**My first Naruto fic. I'm going to try to finish my other story before making this my top priority, but i just had to write this. It was stuck in my head and I couldn't do anything about it. So i just wrote it. I'm planning on making each chapter around 4000 words long, give or take a hundred, so don't expect updatas that often. Also, please remember that the guys are 13 years old here. I know that in the series they are 12 at this point, but for the romance's sake, they have to be a little older. Plus, i hate kids and I consider 12 and bellow kids. =P**

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><p>To most, this was a special day. The day after they graduated from their academy days. The day that they became full fledged shinobi. This was the day that they would meet their new sensei and begin their advanced and more specific training. As well as doing missions and getting to know the world of the four nations. The classroom with the newly formed genin had a cheerful aura to it.<p>

There were many fangirls trying to impress Uchiha Sasuke, the prodigy that was good on the looks. Most of the less obsessed fangirls decided to back down when Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino began fighting over the seat next to the young prodigy's. Sakura had emerged victorious this time around, and Ino had to settle for sitting behind Sasuke.

Just then, a person who wasn't in too much of a good mood entered the class. Just the night before he had discovered that he housed the Kyuubi. He housed the one responsible for leaving their village in ruin. The beast was inside him. He didn't know if he was himself or the monster. For all he knew, he could be either.

These thoughts had been plaguing his mind all through the night and into the early hours of the morning. Naruto walked up to a random seat. However, before he could make it, someone stuck their foot out to trip him. Naruto reflexively jumped up and landed on top of this person's leg.

He screamed in pain at the pressure added to his limb. "What the hell was that for!" Naruto said in a low, angry tone. The chatter around the had died down and everyone was watching the predicament. Even the Uchiha prodigy showed some interest.

"Dude! Man, chill. I was just stretching my leg." the culprit said nervously. He had in fact done it on purpose with he intention of tripping him. His plan had apparently backfired though.

"Like hell you were. Just don't do it again!" Naruto responded in an even more bitter tone than before. He stepped off the almost broken leg and went to take the seat he had caught sight of before. This just happened to be beside Sakura.

Naruto had had a crush on this pink haired girl since as far back as he could remember. He obviously knew about her love or infatuation with the last Uchiha, but Naruto promised himself that it was fine as long as she didn't get hurt.

But he did know that at some point, she would get her heart broken by that bastard because he refused to show any feelings about anything. This was one of the factors that made Naruto dislike Sasuke.

Naruto didn't even notice the people sitting around him. For once, he didn't even care. He sat in silence, still thinking about the Kyuubi inside of him. He wanted to ask it why had it attacked his home. Why did it kill the Yondaime. And most of all, why was it sealed inside of him.

'_Its not like I had a choice_.' Echoed a feminine voice from Naruto's mind. He knew that he wasn't hearing things. It was something in the deepest corners of his subconscious.

Before Naruto was able to pry into this, Iruka stepped into the room. "Good morning! Congratulations on becoming genin." He paused and took a glance at Naruto. He could see it in his face that he hadn't slept much. Iruka felt sorry for his student. No one should have to deal with such sorrow.

Iruka remembered that he had a whole class in front of him, not just the blond. So he continued speaking. "As of today, you are all shinobi. To get here you have all faced difficult trials ad hardships. But thats nothing. What comes next will be far more difficult. Now you are only genin, first level shinobi. All the genin will be grouped into three-man squads. Each squad will be lead by a jounin, an elite shinobi." The class began to whisper and chatter with their friends.

Many female voiced could be heard saying "I want to be with Sasuke-kun!" Sasuke's thoughts on this were different. He hated the idea of being put in a squad. He knew that this would hold him back. How was he supposed to get strong enough to kill Itachi if he had two other punks to take care of.

Sakura was hoping, like many other girls, that she would be with Sasuke. Naruto wasn't paying much attention. He vaguely heard that they were going to be put into squads, but he was trying to talk to that voice.

'_Hey!_' he thought loudly. '_You in there? What are you doing in my brain! Get out of there, its mine! Say something you coward!_' There was no response though. But who would respond to someone who sounded like a whining child.

Iruka had been saying the squads while Naruto was trying to coax the voice out of his mind. He had given each squad a number than named its three members, telling the what room to go to after lunch to meet their instructor.

All the girls who had been put into a squad until now had begun to quietly sob. The Uchiha prodigy had yet to be put in a squad. Until, that is, that Iruka said "Squad Seven: Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Uchiha Sasuke."

Sakura felt like she had won the lottery. Which, in a way, she had. All the girls wanted to be with the handsome Uchiha, and now she was his teammate. She would see him every day until all three of them became chunin. Having Naruto on her team did bring her mood down in the slightest, but he seemed different today.

Sasuke didn't like it. He had one of his most obsessive fangirls on his team. He knew that she would pay no attention to the missions nor the training, and only try to get close to him. Of course, he wouldn't give her the time of day, but it would still be distracting. And then he had the class zero in his team. That Naruto guy would surely bring him down. Sasuke would probably have to risk his own ass to save that dobe's.

The rest of the teams were announced, and they were free to go to lunch. Naruto ate at Ichiraku's in silence. After his third bole, he left the stand. He still had some time before he had to meet his sensei, so he decided to go sit on top of a tree.

Naruto found a large tree, and sat atop one of the top branches. There, he tried to contact that voice he had heard once more. This time in a more serious tone, he called for it. He had already deduced that it was probably the Kyuubi. But he had never imagined it to be a girl!

'_Kyuubi, come out! We need to talk_.' Naruto say loudly into his mind.

'_Kit, I think you of all people should know that I can't come out. So if you want to talk, you have to come in._' Said the female voice.

'_Fine! But we just have to sort some things out_.' Naruto responded. As he did, he shut his eyes and fell into a deep slumber.

To him it didn't feel like he had fallen asleep. It felt like he just blinked. But when he opened his eyes he saw a sewer. A ditty old sewer that had a yellow-ish glow to it. There was mucky water that went halfway up his shin and he felt a little grossed out. But Naruto decided to walk forward.

After a little while of his march, he came to something strange. There was a huge rusty gate that had a little paper that read 'Seal' on it. "Kyuubi!" Naruto called out. His voice echoed through the tunnel and sounded louder. If the beast was in there, it would hear it.

"Yeah yeah. I hear you kit. No need to yell." Said the voice from the other side of the gate. Naruto's eyes widened as he saw the face of the fox. The head itself was about two times as tall as he was. And it had such deep, red eyes that could strike fear in anyone. The beast was huge fans the size of katanas.

Naruto wasn't one for detecting or even feeling chakara, but this was ridiculous. He didn't even have to feel it, he could _see_ it. An ominous red aura all around the enormous beast. It just spelled evil out for him. Naruto had never been more scared in his thirteen years of life.

His body began to tremble and he took a step back. The Kyuubi noticed this and sighed. "My bad, kit. I forgot how my true form affects humans." it said. The red aura began to glow brightly and it momentarily blinded Naruto.

When he regained his eye sight, he didn't see the beast. What he saw was a woman. She has long orange hair and was wearing an orange kimono that matched. She still, however, had the Kyuubi's piercing red eyes and long, sharp fingernails. She even still had the fangs, but they weren't nearly as deadly now that she was the size of a human. "Sorry for the scare, kit." she said.

"Its alright." Naruto said in a whisper. He was pretty shocked with all this, but he tried his best to keep his calm. The Kyuubi just simply walked out of the gates by passing between them. Naruto wanted to run away, but he stood his ground, his body stiff.

Kyuubi noticed this and said "Loosen up kit. I'm not going to kill you or anything." Naruto took his own hand and slapped himself in the face with it, this made Kyuubi chuckle. He shook his head and slapped himself with both hands, one on each cheek.

"I want answers!" He said loudly, pointing one of is index fingers at Kyuubi. "Why did you attack my village?"

"Like I told you before, I didn't have a choice." Kyuubi sighed. "I was calmly sleeping inside Kushina until some dude with a mask came and dragged me out. Then I got mad at him for doing that, and hurting Kushina, so I attacked. But the guy put this weird jutsu on me and my anger got directed at this village for some reason. Then I was like teleported here and I unwillingly began to attack. Them Minato came out and began to fight me. I didn't want to fight the love of my hostess. But the jutsu didn't give me a choice."

Kyuubi took a pause. She breathed deeply and calmed down a bit. "It tore my heart to attack him. Such a handsome man, wounded by me." A small tear streamed down her cheek. "Then he and Kushina didn't have a choice but to seal me. And it had to be within a baby who's chakara channels hand't fully developed. You were unlucky enough to be that child."

Naruto was speechless. The Kyuubi wasn't evil. It hadn't had a choice in the matter. It was all that masked man's fault then! But wait, Naruto had felt the evil in it's chakara. He knew he didn't just imagine that. This was probably just a big trick to get him to release the Kyuubi on the village again. He wasn't going to let that happen.

"So, let me guess, now you want me to undo the seal so you can atone for your sins?" Naruto said, his eyes narrowing.

"No thanks. I have way too much power to be in the outside world. Plus, too many people want to hunt me down or capture me. I'd much rather be sealed happily in a good kid like you. Better you than some jerk." She said.

Naruto's jaw dropped. He just stared at the Kyuubi. Eyes wide in amazement. So it didn't want to wreck the place. But he still didn't believe it. Kyuubi took a good look at Naruto's cobalt eyes. She knew that he didn't believe it. But she figured that he would eventually. He was stuck with her after all.

"Kit, I know you don't believe me, but we have to get along somehow. Oh, and by the way, you've been in here for about an hour and a half, so if you had something to do..." she said.

"Yeah, whatever..." Naruto responded. But then he remembered that he had to meet his teacher. He had only around ten minutes to kill when he had gone up the the tree, and that meant that he was an hour and twenty minutes late. "Oh no! Kyuubi, get me out of here! I need to go!"

Kyuubi laughed as Naruto began to run around the place panicking. "Hey kit!" She said and Naruto skidded to a stop. He looked at her with a clueless expression, his blond hair ruffled from the running. "Good luck!" As she said that, she snapped her fingers, and Naruto disappeared from the sewer with a small 'Poof'.

"He's just so cute!" Kyuubi said as she strode back to her gates.

When Naruto opened his eyes again, he was sitting on the tree. He shook his head and jumped down. He dashed to the academy as fast as he could, entering a room with the label '439' on it. In the room there was Uchiha Sasuke sitting in a chair staring at nothing, and Haruno Sakura leaning against a table.

Naruto looked around and saw no one else. It appeared that the teacher was not here yet. "Hey guys, sorry I'm late."

Sasuke gave him no acknowledgment whatsoever and Sakura simply said "Your lucky that sensei is late too." before diverting her attention back to Sasuke.

The blond took the seat closest to him which was on the table right beside the door. Usually, if his teacher was late, he would have tried to pull a prank on him. But he wasn't in the mood today. He just thought about what Kyuubi had told him about when she had been forced to attack the village. She said something about people named Minato and Kushina. Naruto knew that Minato Namikaze was the Yondaime, and Kyuubi had said that Kushina was in love with him or something.

But Naruto was now confused. The Yondaime had always been a sort of idol to him, someone he felt like he had to surpass. He did do a little research on him and had learned many things. Like that he was taught by Jiraya, of the Sanin. That he had taught a squad of genin, much like his own. Also that he was know as the Yellow Flash of the Leaf because of his space-time jutsu. However, Naruto had never heard of him having a wife or a lover of any sort. It must have been unrequited love or something.

Then Naruto moved on to thinking about if what Kyuubi said about not wanting to attack the village. It didn't seem like she wanted to be unsealed or anything, but maybe she was just being lazy for a while. Everyone has those moods every once in awhile. And it isn't that hard to believe that there are strong shinobi that want Konoha to be destroyed. There are plenty of those. So maybe it was all just a setup.

While Naruto was deep in though, Sasuke took a glance towards him. '_The dobe isn't acting like usual. He's... quiet._' He thought. '_He looks serious. Well, if he had that type of attitude, it might not be that bad having him on my team._' Then he directed his gaze to Sakura. She was looking at him too, and their eyes met. Sasuke frowned. '_Better than her_.'

Sakura's heart soared when her eyes met Sasuke's. She felt like she had never been so happy in her life! But then he frowned, like his disapproved of her. '_I must be imagining things._' she thought. She looked in Naruto's direction and saw him sitting on the desk staring at the floor. There was a different feel about him. He wasn't acting the way he usually did. And, for the first time, Sakura noticed that he looked pretty cute. Now that he didn't have those stupid goggles on his forehead and that he didn't have the goofy smile that often seemed forced.

Time passed quickly as each individual explored their own thoughts. It had been exactly forty minutes since Naruto had walked into the room, and the door began to slowly slide open. In came a man that had tall, spiky gray hair and wore the classic jounin uniform. He had a mask covering his mouth and nose, and his Konoha headband covered his left eye. You could see it in his right eye that he was smiling though.

He looked from Naruto to Sasuke to Sakura. "Sorry I'm late. You see, a black cat crossed my path and I had to take the long way around." He said.

Sakura knew that at a time like this Naruto would have said something like "Sensei, that makes no sense!" But she disregarded the thought thinking that he figured he had no right to say that since he had been late too.

"Anyway, lets go up to the roof and introduce ourselves to the group." the jounin said and walked back out of the room. Sakura began to walk after him, followed by Naruto and Sasuke. On the roof they sat where they could and the jounin spoke again. "So you can say your name, likes and dislikes and maybe your dreams for the future as well as your hobbies. I'll start. My name is Hatake Kakashi. Things I like and things I hate… I don't feel like telling you that. My dreams for the future… never really thought about it. As for my hobbies… I have lots of hobbies." He said.

"Well that was kind of pointless. All he really told us was his name." Sakura said.

"Well then how about you go next pinky." Kakashi said, slightly annoyed by her comment.

"I'm Haruno Sakura. What I like... I mean the person I like is..." Sakura said. Then she paused and blushed deeply. She took a glance at Sasuke. "My hobby is..." She blushed deeper and kept on glancing towards Sasuke. "My dream for the future is..." Another few glances toward Sasuke after she said that.

Kakashi was now very irritated with his only female student. So he stepped in. "And... what do you hate?" he said.

"Naruto!" She said bluntly. Naruto had been paying attention to all this, and this was a deep blow to his heart. Granted, before that day he acted like an insensitive goofball that took nothing serious, and he promised himself that that would change now, but it was still very rude of her to say that she hated him.

'_Girls her age are more interested in boys than in shinobi training..._' Kakashi thought with a sigh. "Fine then, next." Kakashi ordered, looking at Sasuke.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I hate a lot of things. And I don't particularly like anything." When she heard that, Sakura felt like a ton of steel was added to her chest. Sasuke continued "What I have is not a dream, because I will make it a reality. I'm going to restore my clan and destroy a certain someone." His voice was determined and deadly.

There was a short silence before Kakashi said "Okay... Lastly." He looked towards Naruto.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto." He began. He tried his best to put up his hyperactive front but it was a little harder than usual. "I like ramen, and I don't like having to wait for it to be ready. My hobbies are training and trying out different typer of ramen. My dream is to become the Hokage, that way people will stop disrespecting me and see me as someone important." His speech lacked the usual fire that was normally there when he spoke of his dream.

Kakashi noticed that out of the three, the only one that had been able to say something relevant for each category he had put out had been Naruto. Though he had said it without much emotion, he said it nonetheless. But that was beside the point. "Alright, now that we all know who we are, I'm going to inform you about your next mission." He received three pairs of curious eyes. Some more obvious than others. "Its a task that the four of us will do together. A survival exercise."

Sakura decided to speak up. "I thought we were supposed to have a real mission, not more practice. We already did this stuff at the academy, thats how we got here." She was slightly irritated that they were going to do more training.

"This is not like your previous training." Kakashi responded.

"So what kind of training is it then?" Naruto said. He tried as best he could to act like his usual self, not succeeding. His voice came out a lot more serious than he had intended, and this didn't go unnoticed by the group.

Kakashi decided to ignore it for now and continued with his plan to scare the genin. He laughed evilly and said "Well, if I answer that question, your not going to like it." He smiled and that freaked out Sakura a bit. Naruto couldn't be scared of something like that after facing Kyuubi in her true form. Sasuke was much the same. After his encounter with Itachi, not many glares or faces could put a fright in him.

The jounin was a little upset that he didn't mange to scare them. He had expected for Sasuke to be unaffected by this since he often was, but he had also presumed that Naruto would be much like Sakura. He played on with his game though "Out of the twenty-seven graduates who just came here, only nine will actually be accepted as genin. The other eighteen will be weeded out and sent back to the academy. In other words, this is a make-it or break-it, pass-fail test. And the chance that you'll fail is at least sixty-six percent."

This much had all three of them get a reaction. The realization that they might have to be sent back and start all over again was pretty troublesome. Kakashi was much more satisfied with this reaction than he had been with the others. "See, didn't I tell you that you wouldn't like it." He said. "Be at the designated training grounds at five AM, and bring your fighting gear."

The three felt a surge of determination. Sakura wanted to pass this test so that Sasuke would look at her. Naruto wanted to pass this test to get one step closer to becoming Hokage. And Sasuke wanted to get through this to get stronger, strong enough to kill his brother.

"Thats it. You're dismissed. Oh, tomorrow you better skip breakfast, or else you'll puke." And with that, Kakashi vanished in a cloud of smoke.


	2. Date

**I haven't updated in a while because these chapters are pretty long for what I'm used to. Plus, Shippuden is now all filler so I haven't had much motivation for Naruto lately. It is actually annoying the hell out of me. Yeah, yeah, I know. read the manga. And i do... but I got to a point where the war began and its all military stuff and I don't really like it... but I don't want to skip, so I just stop.  
>Anyway, this chapter is a little shorter than I wanted. I wanted all my chapters to be in the four thousands. But this only only reached mid three thousands. But anyway, I just wanted to write it up and post it because I got 300 hits on this story, which isn't much but for a single chapter its not bad, and I wanted to keep it going. To show that I do have an idea for where this is going, and I'm probably going to continue it for a while... because I want Sasuke to get with someone and its going to be a while before I can get that person in (-coughKarincough-)<br>gosh... i think i'm coming down with something hehe  
>Also, someone reviewed saying that they loved Naruto's goofy smile and thought it was cute. I agree completely. But I don't think so when its forced. And that all comes with the context. If theres just a pic of his smiling, i'll go "awwn!" but if it has a context of a situation where he was putting on an act (like where I wrote it for example) then its no good =  
>please read and review! and a heads up, I might not update for a few weeks cuz these are pretty hard to write.<strong>

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><p>Naruto began to walk back to his dirty apartment. He walked in silence for about a few minutes before he heard his name being called. "Naruto!" he turned around and saw Sakura running after him. "Wait up!" She said. After a few seconds, she caught up to him and smiled. It was a forced smile that looked rather fake and obvious, but a smile nonetheless. This made Naruto pretty happy.<p>

"Whats up Sakura-chan?" he asked. "I thought that you'd walk home with teme."

A sad smile replaced the fake one on Sakura's face. "I tried, but he ditched me." She seemed sad. Her eyes glowing brightly as if she was about to cry.

Naruto noticed this so he gently took hold of her hand. "Don't worry about it Sakura-chan. Sasuke has just been through a lot and doesn't know how to trust people yet. He'll come around." Naruto tried to confront her.

Her smile broke into a frown and tears finally began to stream down her creamy cheeks. "You don't get it Naruto! He said that I was annoying, a nuisance and that he never wanted to see me! He said that I should have never tried to become a kunoichi. He said that I was useless..." the tears kept rolling down the side of her face as she began to sob. "Useless..." she repeated in between the sobs and sniffles.

Naruto, not knowing what to do, wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back with his hand. Sakura rested her head on his shoulder and kept on crying. "Sakura-chan, your not useless. I know your not. You can learn many types of jutsu and you have good chakara control from what I've seen. Not to mention that your really smart too." Naruto kept pointing out her good points but she just cried and cried.

After fifteen minutes, her sobs finally began to die down. She looked up at Naruto, her eyes red from all the crying. "I'm sorry... You probably think I'm annoying too." She said.

Naruto was taken aback. How could she even think that? "Sakura-chan, there is no way that I could ever even think that. The truth is that I've always looked up to you and loved you." He said in the most tender voice he could muster. And it wasn't even forced. He was speaking his mind right now. Not a single doubt that this was what he felt.

"How?" Sakura stuttered. "How could you look up to me? _Me_?" Her eyes widened.

"Because your always strong. You always fight for what you want, and you know what that is. Your smart and you take advantage of that. And the thing I look up to most about you is that you defend what you care about." Naruto said. His gaze directed intently at her.

Sakura was able to see his raw emotions in his eyes. Then a memory flashed into her mind. Of just a little while ago, when Kakashi asked what she hated, she had answered that she hated him. And yet here he was, looking at her as if she were a treasure, trying to make her feel better. "Umm, Naruto. About what I said to Kakashi-sensei. When he asked what I hated, I didn't mean it..." She looked down and blushed.

Naruto's heart fluttered. He had made her blush! Now that was a first. "Sakura-chan, will you be alright? I mean, after what the teme said." He was happy, but still worried about her.

"I'll be fine, Naruto. Thanks for everything." She responded. Naruto took this as a sign that it was time they parted ways. He noticed that his arms were still around her petit frame and he slowly let her go. He felt an emptiness in his heart, but he ignored it.

Sakura hadn't noticed that his arms were around her either. It only struck her when she felt the cold air on her back. She didn't like it. Not one bit. She longed to be in his arms again, though she didn't know why. She figured that it was just because she was still hurt and needed more comforting. So she acted on that. "Naruto, if you don't mind, would you like to maybe hang out? I just... don't want to be alone right now."

Naruto's heart soared. The girl he loved had asked her out. '_Nice one kit!_' Echoed Kyuubi's voice in his mind.

'_Shut up Kyuubi, don't ruin my mood!_' Naruto responded to her. She just laughed and her voice soon faded.

Sakura took his hand and started walking to the center of Konoha. She was now smiling and seemed happy. "C'mon, this way!" Naruto smiled back at her and followed.

While they were walking there, hand in hand, Naruto just listened to Sakura talk about things. She talked about Ino, about how proud her mum had been that she became a genin, and mostly about how annoyed she was at Sasuke now. She had finally realized that he was a heartless jerk. Took her long enough.

"Say, Naruto?" She said once she had finished talking about her resolution to forget about Sasuke.

"Yeah?" He responded.

"Why do you always wear such ugly clothes? I know this might sound rude, but I'm being honest." She said, a serious gleam in her eyes. Of course a girl would become serious while talking about clothes.

"Well this was the only outfit I could afford to buy. Most merchants either don't let me into the stores or make things really expensive." Naruto said in a matter-of-fact tone. To him it was a fact. The whole village hated him. There was no surprise there. And he knew why, because of Kyuubi. But he knew that it wasn't her fault.

Sakura was shocked. She knew that he was teased and bullied at the academy, but she didn't know it went that far. For kids to tease and insult one another is one thing, but for adults to not allow him to enter a store is outrageous. "Well I won't be hearing anymore of that!" She said as she dragged him to her favorite store that had both male and female clothes.

The cleric at the counter said "Hey Sakura!" as she was a regular here, most of the faculty knew her. But then the man saw Naruto. His smile turned to a scowl as he said "Sorry dear, but could you not come in here with your... _friend_."

Sakura's eyes narrowed as she glared at him. He knew Sakura to be a sweet girl who wanted to impress some guy. But this was a side of her he had never seen. It scared him. "Never mind..." he choked.

Sakura nodded in approve and she turned to a rack of male clothes. She pulled out many things and started piling them on top of Naruto. She had picked out a few things from the first, then moved on to the second, then third, fourth, fifth and so on until she had gone through the whole store. Where Naruto had been there was now a pile of clothes. Most were black, some had some orange, some had some blue. There was a lot of navy blue and plenty of white in there as well.

She told Naruto to set them down next to one of the changing rooms and he did so. She sorted out outfits from the pile faster than the eye could see. Then she sent him in to change. She either said yes to the pants and no to the shirt or vise versa. Or yes to all or no to all. After a lot of changing, she had sorted the pile of clothes into two smaller piles. The ones that were good, and the ones that weren't.

She sent Naruto to put back the ones that were no, and she paid for the ones that were yes. Naruto wanted to complain that he didn't want her to pay for it. She said that he'd eventually pay her back, and it didn't really matter to her since she had a lot of credit in that store and always got huge discounts.

Sakura had bought a total of fifteen shirts and seven pairs of paints in that store. That would last Naruto for a while. Then she proceeded to buy shoes. She didn't go as full out as she had before. She settled for a pair of black shinobi sandals and a pair of black converse.

The whole while, her mind never again wandered to Sasuke. It was fixated on Naruto. She noticed many things in those few hours that they were at the store. First, that he wasn't half as stupid as he appeared. He might have been blond, but he was very bright and had a good heart. Maybe he was the type to act differently in front of a crowd or even in a public place, then he did one on one. There are those types of people that hide their true selves to the majority. Naruto seemed to be like that because he was mostly serious with Sakura.

He was serious, but in the fun way. In the way where he meant everything he said. Where he said things because he found them to be relevant. Where the only jokes he made were sort of clever and mostly insulting himself, just to make Sakura laugh. Sakura learned, that he was actually a pretty nice guy.

Another key feature she noticed, was that he wasn't bad looking. She had forced him out of those ugly-ass goggles and away from the dreaded jumpsuit he always wore. Instead she put him in jeans, T-shirts, tank tops, all kinds of stylish things. His deep blue eyes and bright blond hair allowed him to wear almost anything and still look cheerful. And with his arms now exposed, Sakura was able to see some fairly decent biceps. This made her really like that tank top she forced him in.

Afterwards they went down to Ichiraku's for dinner. "So Naruto... Tell me, why does the village treat you like crap?" Sakura asked.

Naruto had noticed throughout the day that the pink haired girl acted a lot more naturally around him than how she was around Sasuke. He was glad, he didn't want her to be acting like a... a... he didn't know what to call it. Sort of a fake person. Laughing at anything you said, even if it wasn't funny and just trying to flirt. Naruto didn't enjoy that. He thought it was unnatural. He preferred her real self, snappy comments, punches and all. "Well... I'm not sure how you'd take it if I told you." He answered

"Don't worry about it. I won't think of you any differently than I do now." She said while taking a bite of her small sized ramen bole.

The blond looked her in the eyes. He could trust her, he knew it. He knew it because he loved her. "Well, I can't really tell you here, so haw about we go to the park when we're done eating and I'll tell you there." Sakura nodded and they finished their meal in relative silence, only exchanging simple small-talk.

After they were done, Naruto paid the bill, saying that he was the one who had lots of credit there, and they walked to the big, empty park. Naruto was holding six or so bags in his hands that were completely stuffed with clothes. But he didn't mind. It wasn't as if they weighed much.

They sat down on a bench and there wasn't a soul in sight. "So, are you ready to tell me. You don't have to if you don't want to." Sakura said.

"No, I want to." He responded and then took a deep breath. "You know that thirteen years ago the Kyuubi attacked the village, right?"

"Yeah, and the Yondaime killed it." Sakura stated the wall-known fact.

"Actually, he didn't. He sealed it..." Sakura's eyes widened as Naruto said that. "Inside of me." his voice was rather weak as he said that. He expected Sakura to hit him or yell at him, or worse, run away from him. He didn't know what he would do if she ran. It would most defiantly break his heart and tear his mind inside-out. But instead, he felt warm arms around his shoulders. "Sakura-chan..."

She was crying. She now understood why he was treated the way he was. She felt so sad about it. The whole village thought he was a monster, when it was because of him that they were all alive. She couldn't imagine what it would have been like to be hated for one's whole life because of something that they didn't have a choice about. She also felt bad because she knew that she had also hurt him in the past.

But then she realized something. She realized that he had gathered the courage to tell her the truth. Sakura was aware that he probably feared her reaction, but he still told her. That meant something, it had to. "Naruto... you trusted me enough to tell me this... why?"

She pulled back from the hug and looked him straight in the eyes. "I thought that was obvious Sakura-chan. Its because I love you." He said. Those three words sounded familiar in her ears. She thought about it for a second a realized why. He had told her the same thing when he was comforting her from what Sasuke had said to her. But she had been too upset to notice.

"Naruto... I... I...!" was all Sakura could manage to say. she tried to choke out more words, but Naruto put his finger on her lips.

"You don't have to say anything Sakura-chan." Naruto interrupted softly. "Let me walk you home, a lot of things happened to you today." As those words exited his lips, he took her hand and began to walk.

Sakura followed. She was pretty happy about him holding her hand. She felt comfort from it, the warmth was calming and it relaxed her slightly. Her mind wandered as Naruto lead the way. She thought about Sasuke. How insignificant his insult was to her now. Then she thought of herself. The person she was, only this morning.

She had been obsessed with Sasuke. Everything and anything she ever did, she did while thinking '_I wonder if Sasuke will think of me better now._' Her sole intent was to be seen by him. But why was it that she was ever interested in him in the first place? Was it because of his rich family heritage? Or maybe because of his good looks? Perhaps it was because he had a mysterious and bad-boy aura to him. It was probably a blend of all those things.

There was still the possibility that she was simply following the crowd. Since she knew that everyone liked Sasuke, maybe she felt that being easier than having to deal with the reality to follow your own feelings. Facing the truth is always hard. It is so much simpler to just let someone take the choice for you, and follow along.

It was probably because of that that Sakura mistreated Naruto in the past. Since she saw everyone do it. The adults, her classmates, the teachers. Everyone did so, which lead to her and others following after them.

Sakura noticed that she had been stupid. She remembered when she was young, she had seen the blond, looking depressed on a swing. She had the urge to go talk to him, to see why he looked so sad. But then she didn't. She didn't because she saw that a few mothers were calling him some sort of demon. She overheard them telling their own children to stay away from him.

She still wanted to go talk to him, but she was afraid. If the grown-ups were scared of him and didn't want their children to go near him. There must have been a reason. Sakura was afraid of that reason, so she decided to she would go talk to him when she found out what was wrong. But she never did. After a while, she had forgotten that she had wanted to get to know him, and it became habit to insult and discriminate him.

The pinkette's mind wandered back to boys. If she hadn't been just another white lamb, if she had been the black sheep of the heard, who would she have fallen in love with? Could she have tried to get to know Sasuke and fallen for him anyway? Would she have fallen for someone who she hadn't met. Would she have found someone else while doing something other than pursue the Uchiha. Would she have fallen for no one and dedicated herself to becoming a stronger kunoichi? Or maybe, just maybe, would she have fallen in love with Naruto?

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto said. This made Sakura look up. She found her house in front of her. She looked to Naruto to see that he was looking directly into her deep, emerald eyes. "We're here." he whispered.

"Yeah." Sakura responded dully. "Thank you for everything Naruto. Its just that I have a lot to think about right now." She let go of his hand, and stood on her tip-toes to give him a light kiss on the cheek. Naruto blushed at that action. "I'll see you tomorrow." Sakura finished and ran into her house.

Naruto stood motionless in front of the Haruno household for a few seconds. He placed the hand that was grasping her's not two minutes ago on the cheek that she had kissed. He smiled and blushed again. He heard Kyuubi saying something in his mind, but he was so zoned out that he couldn't identify the words. It just sounded like an echoing of her voice.

The blond began to drag his feet in the direction of his messy old apartment. His hand never leaving his cheek. he arrived home still in a state of bliss. Upon his arrival, a small voice in his mind of the minuscule part of Naruto that was still conscious, guided him to the shower. The warm water helped him regain his senses.

He exited the bathroom and proceeded to prepare himself for bed. He didn't care what time it was, it didn't really matter. All he knew was that the second he set his head on the pillow, he fell asleep.

Naruto waited to enter dreams filled with Sakura. He felt his feet hit a surface and he saw the silhouette of a female in the shadows. He didn't bother to examine the surroundings as he charged straight at the figure screaming "Sakura-chan!" in joy.

His happy moments were shattered with the feel of a firm yet smooth hand slamming into Naruto's nose. It was his own momentum that caused the pain. He placed both hands on his nose and began to curse loudly. "Sakura-chan! Why?" He said.

"Don't call me 'Sakura-chan' you midget bastard!" Shouted the figure. Though it was now clear that it was not Sakura. It was Kyuubi, her eyes shinning a brighter, more potent red then before. She was mad. Not good.

"Aghh!" Naruto bellowed. He ran back a few yards before he calmed himself. "Kyuubi! Don't scare me like that!" he said childishly.

Kyuubi sighed and shook her head staring at the mucky water of the suer they were in. "Your such an idiot Naruto. You need to calm down and think before you do anything. And I mean anything! If you don't it'll often lead to misunderstandings, problems, or even death. You don't want that, now do you?" Kyuubi said in sort of a motherly tone. Deep down, Naruto enjoyed this. He had never had someone who would explain something like that to him. It was soothing, to have a friendly authority like that. Sort of like a parent.

"Sorry, I guess I got a little carried away." Naruto said while rubbing the back of his head.

"Its quite alright. Unlike other circumstances, you won't lose anything by having a misunderstanding with me. Except maybe a broken nose, but thats not too bad" Kyuubi responded with a laugh. "Besides, I do believe that you have reason to be up in the clouds." She smirked.

Naruto blushed in response to that. "You could say that."

"But you still have to worry about what she's going to answer to your proclamation of love." Kyuubi pointed out.

"Thats true. But with that kiss she gave me, I'm not all that worried." Naruto said with a grin.

Kyuubi eyed him, the smirk still on her face. "Confident, aren't we?" She asked sarcastically.

Naruto laughed in response. "Oh yeah, how can I feel pain if I'm in a dream?" He asked. It was true. He remembered going to sleep, and he knew that the Kyuubi only existed within him, so this had to be in his mind. But then he still felt the pain on his nose from the blow he just too.

"Oh, that? Its because while your here, this body that you have responds to your nervous system, and that is the cause of all feeling and emotion. That includes pain, or even amusement." Kyuubi explained. "Its quite simple really." She added.

"I guess that seems logical." Naruto said.

"Well, anyway, I'm proud of you kit. I only spoke to you a few times, and your life is already better off." Kyuubi smiled smugly. She was more proud of herself than she was of Naruto. But the fact remained, he was better off now. Wether it were because of Kyuubi or because of Naruto himself, he was happier now than he had ever been before.


	3. Test

**I'm really sorry for the long wait. But I had to travel and I have social obligations and there was a new season of anime so I started watching some of those. And since I'm a huge fan of Fairy Tail, I was a little stressed with the past few manga chapters.  
>But here it is!<br>And its an extra thousand words! just cuz you waited so long.  
>I hope you like it and I don't own Naruto.<br>Please review**

* * *

><p>Kyuubi and Naruto continued conversing throughout the night. They talked about Naruto's activities with Sakura as well as other things. Kyuubi explained in greater detail what happened the day she attacked the village. Well, it wasn't really more detailed, it was just said slower and with a calmer mind, allowing Naruto to understand it better.<p>

Then they began to discuss the matter of the test that Kakashi was going to give out the next day. "You know, I don't think I'm going to help you." Kyuubi said. "Not this time anyway."

Naruto began to complain. "Why not? We're supposed to be partners or something."

"That is true. But I want to see what you can do if I do not aid you." Kyuubi responded.

Naruto glared at her for a second. His eyes narrowing and staring deep into her own red eyes. "Fine. But you better help me out after this time. I'm sure that you have more battle experience and stuff like that than almost anyone! I could really use that!"

Kyuubi was feeling a little arrogant now. "You got that right kit! I have more of that than any human. Not to mention that I have an abundance of chakara. You have a lot for a human, but thats nothing compared to me!" She laughed smugly and kept boasting about herself. She seemed to have a huge ego, and Naruto just fed it.

The two kept exchanging remarks for some time before Kyuubi finally said something with some actual truth to it "I thought you might want to know that its five AM already. I think you're supposed to meet up with Kakashi now." She said.

"What?" Naruto shouted "Already? But I haven't even had a wink of sleep!" He was beginning to panic now, running around like crazy.

"Calm down kit!" Kyuubi said loudly. "You did sleep, the whole time we were talking, you body is out there resting."

When Naruto heard those words, he slowly came to a stop. "Really?" He asked cluelessly. Kyuubi nodded. A smile grew on his face and he cheerfully said "Great! Now send me back so I can get going!"

Kyuubi obliged and with a snap of her fingers, he was gone from the sewer. Naruto slowly opened his eyes to find that he was on his bed. He glanced at the clock on the wall, it read 5:03 AM. True to Kyuubi's words, it was time to meet up with Sensei. But how did she know the time? Whatever, Naruto needed to get ready, he was already late.

He remembered Kakashi's warning not to eat, and he decided to follow it. The blond charged straight into the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He took a shower, not caring if he had taken one the previous night because to him, it seemed as if he spent the whole evening in a sewer.

He then put on some of the clothes that Sakura had bought for him. Wearing a pair of black sweatpants with a few details in orange on the hem and the bottom of each leg. He also wore a black T-shirt that had the Konoha symbol in orange in the center. It was amazing how Sakura had found the perfect clothes for him.

Naruto got his pouches filled with shuriken and kunai knives and strapped them onto his legs. He also tied his Konoha forehead protector to his forehead under his bangs and slipped on his new sandals. The young shinobi then ran out the door heading towards the training grounds.

Once he arrived, he saw that Sasuke and Sakura were already there. Sakura seemed pretty sleepy, while Sasuke was his usual self, showing only slight signs of being tired. "Good Morning!" Naruto said cheerfully.

Sakura replied "Morning." followed by a yawn.

The trio then waited. They watched the sun rise, and continued to wait. By then they were all fully awake, and starting to feel the effects of not eating anything. Naruto and Sakura had resorted to sitting down on the floor. Two hours had passed before Kakashi finally made his entrance.

"Hi fellows, good morning." He said.

"You're late!" Sakura and Naruto screamed in unison. Sasuke didn't say anything, but he sided along with his team mates by giving their teacher a potent glare.

"I got lost on the path of life." Kakashi responded with some fake emotion. The three continued to glare at him and he cleared his throat. "Lets move on.." he said. He walked over to a tree stump and placed a timer on it. He messed with a few buttons and said "Alright, its set to noon" He pressed the switch that was on the top. The clock began to tick.

"Your assignment is very simple, you just have to take these bells from me." He said while holding up two silver bells. "Thats all there is to it." He added. He rang the bells once and then continued "If you can't get them by noon, you go without lunch."

Naruto wanted to complain but he remained in silence.

Then the white haired jounin pointed at three tree stumps, the one in the middle with the clock on top "You'll be tied to those posts and you'll watch while I eat my lunch in front of you."

'_So thats why..._' Sasuke thought. His expression dulled and idiotic.

'_He told us not to eat breakfast so it's be harder on us_' Sakura thought while holding her stomach.

Naruto had no particular thoughts, he was just holding his gut and thinking about how hungry he was feeling.

All three of the teenagers had never felt so hungry then at that moment. It wasn't because of actual hunger, but the thought of not having any food since their dinner, and still have to fight a full fledged jounin was blood-curdling.

"Wait a minute, theres three of us, how come theres only two bells?" Sakura asked.

Kakashi smiled. "So that way, at least one of you will be tied up to a post and be ultimately disqualified for failing to complete the mission. That one goes back to the academy."

Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura were beginning to hate their sensei more and more with each passing second. Every word that exited his concealed mouth was meant to simply piss them off. Of course, Kakashi was just getting a kick out of it on the inside. The priceless looks on their faces was so comical, it'd even make Gamabunta laugh.

"Then again, all three of you could flunk out." Kakashi continued. Aggravating the members of squad seven even more. "You can use any weapons, including shuriken. If you're not prepared to kill me, you won't be able to take the bells." The masked man continued. He rang the bells once more, placing them in his grip while doing so.

Sasuke put on a look of determination, mirrored by both Sakura and Naruto.

"When I say start, you can begin." Kakashi said. He paused, allowing each to take a stance. "Get ready and..." he drew out that word, building the tension. "Start!"

After that word was said, all three genin jumped into the air. Sakura hid under some bushes, Kakashi was quick to locate her. Sasuke had hidden in the tree tops and was also identified by Kakashi in an instant.

"Shinobi must know how to conceal their movements, and hide effectively." Kakashi recited aloud. He was overall satisfied with the way that Sakura and Sasuke were able to hide themselves. He wasn't as content with Naruto however.

Different from the other, he was standing right in front of the jounin. Arms at his sides, ready to react to any attack from any angle, a determined glow in his eye.

The first thing that came into both Kakashi's and Sasuke's minds was '_Fool._' But then Kakashi analyzed better. Perhaps this boy's fighting style wasn't well suited for ambush. Or maybe he wasn't so good at detecting openings, so the best fighting choice would be to go head on. His stance didn't seem that bad, and the emotion in his eyes was adequate for the situation, so maybe he wasn't all that stupid.

Naruto charged with full force and speed at the jounin. Kakashi reached into his side-pouch and began to speak. "Shinobi Battle Techniques, Part One: Tai-Jutsu. The physical part." After that short recital, he pulled out a book from the pouch. Naruto didn't stop for an instant and continued his assault. He punched, his hand being caught by Kakashi's free one, the one that didn't have the book.

The blond then attempted to kick Kakashi, but he ducked making him miss. The exchange continued like so, Naruto continuing to miss and to be blocked. After a few minutes of this continuing, Kakashi got bored, and he decided to go on the offensive. He tried a low kick and managed to get Naruto unbalanced, then he proceeded to punch him in the gut. This action sent Naruto skidding across the grass into the water.

While under the water, Naruto heard Kyuubi laugh. She was really enjoying this. '_You alright kit? Need some help?_' She said mockingly.

'_Shut up! I'm trying to concentrate. And I know that even if I asked for your help, I wouldn't get it._' Naruto retorted.

After sending Naruto into the water, Kakashi continued reading. Sakura felt slightly bad for Naruto. He was trying his all, but his opponent was on a totally different level. Sasuke's opinion on Naruto was starting to go on a better light. Sure he was getting his ass handed to him. But this was a jounin he was fighting. The dobe still had the guts to go up against him, and he did show a few good moves.

Refusing to give up, Naruto decided to attack from the water. He sent two shuriken from the water. They spun and curved their paths and headed directly to the reading man. Kakashi just caught them by raising his hand and making his fingers enter the holes of the small star-shaped weapons. All this without lifting his eye from the book. The two shuriken slowly stopped their rotation after then.

Not two seconds after, five Naruto emerged from the water, all directing themselves at Kakashi. They went all at once with the intent of killing their sensei. Using only tai-jutsu they attacked. One clone went for the legs, managing to get the jounin slightly off balance, another managed to clash his fist against the masked man's face. And a third managed to lightly graze on one of the bells with his hands.

Reacting to that, Kakashi extended his leg and preformed a spinning kick. Causing four Naruto to disappear into clouds of smoke, and the fifth to go flying into a tree. And before the eye could blink, Kakashi went up close to Naruto and tied him up to the tree.

Naruto struggled and tried to free himself, but he found that impossible, he was too tightly bound. "That was a very nice try Naruto. I'm impressed. But sadly, it wasn't good enough." Kakashi said.

'_Like that guy said kit. Not bad, but you could do better._' Kyuubi added.

Naruto sighed in defeat. He decided that it would be best to just stay bound like that for a while and try to think up a strategy.

Sasuke saw that Kakashi's back was turned to him. The jounin was staring at Naruto, so this must be the perfect opening for him to strike. Upon realizing this, Sasuke immediately threw a series of shuriken at his target. They hit, only to reveal that Kakashi had used a substitution jutsu. Sasuke was quick to change location, knowing that his sensei now knew where he had been hiding.

Sakura had witnessed it all, and she now began to go on the move. She was afraid that she had also been found because she had gasped when she saw the fake Kakashi being hit.

Naruto had convinced Kyuubi to at least tell him what was happening. Since Kyuubi, unlike Naruto, could sense and detect chakara with extreme precision over a large area, she was able to tell her host the exact positions of Kakashi, Sasuke and Sakura, and what they were doing.

Sakura came to a halt when she spotted Kakashi in a small clearing, still reading his book. Then she head "Sakura, behind you." in a whisper. It was Kakashi. She screamed in surprise. The next action that the white haired man took was to place Sakura in a gen-jutsu. She saw all her loved ones dead, covered in blood.

She saw her parents. They were dragging along on the floor, reaching out to her. She saw Ino, leaning against a tree, dozens of kunai knives stabbed into various parts of her body. Her other friends from the academy were all there, also harmed by something. She also saw Naruto there. He was in a worse condition that anyone else there. Sakura let out and ear-piercing scream, and then fainted.

Kakashi hid behind a bush. "Maybe I overdid it. I wonder what she saw." he asked aloud. "Shinobi Battle Techniques, Part Two: Gen-Jutsu. The mental part." he recited.

From a clearing just a few yards away from where Sakura now lay, was Sasuke. Sasuke was thinking of how stupid his new teammate was for falling for such a simple gen-jutsu. "I'm not like Sakura or Naruto." Sasuke said in a low, deadly voice.

"You can say that, after you've gotten one of these bells." Kakashi pointed out in his usual tone. He turned to Sasuke and watched him take a stance, the whole while, not letting go of his book. Both stared each other down for a few moments, then the battle began.

Sasuke took the first move by throwing four shuriken at his target. Kakashi easily dodged while saying, "Theres no point using normal attacks." Sasuke then threw one more kunai knife and cut a rope that was up in a tree. "A trap!" exclaimed Kakashi as a barrage of more kunai knives hit the spot where he was just at before dodging once more.

The Uchiha then continued by dashing to Kakashi's location while the jounin was still distracted. He launched a side-kick aimed at his opponent's masked face which was barely blocked by his forearm. Kakashi instantly took a hold of Sasuke's leg and caught the following punch in his hand. Sasuke continued by attacking with his free leg, which was also blocked.

That instant, Sasuke saw the bells. He grinned as he reached out to grab one. Kakashi was astonished at this kid's speed and strength, and jumped back before he could get any closer to the bells. '_He's fierce._' the jounin thought. '_I won't be able to read Itcha Itach Paradise now._'

Naruto was still tied to his tree. He had his eyes closed and a serious expression on his face. If he were seen by anyone, they could have concluded that he was sleeping and not having that much of a pleasant dream. But that would have been incorrect. The truth was that he was listening intently to Kyuubi. She was sensing the chakara of Kakashi, Sasuke and Sakura, retelling all the events that were happening to her host.

'_That kid Sasuke is pretty good. Seems like you have yourself a rival kit._' Kyuubi said to Naruto through their newly discovered mental connection.

'_Yeah, maybe._' Naruto responded. '_Anyway, hows Sakura-chan doing? Is she okay?_' It was obvious by his tone of voice that he was worried.

'_Well, let me check._' Kyuubi said. There was a slight pause before she was able to respond. '_Looks like she is finally waking up form the shock that that gen-jutsu gave her._' Naruto smiled at that statement.

Sakura slowly sat up. "What?" she shouted. She looked around furiously, searching for any sign of blood or anything of the sort. Then it hit her, "It must have been a gen-jutsu! How could I have missed that?" she said aloud. The girl then stood up slowly.

"Well, you are different from the other two, I'll grant you that." Kakashi said.

Sasuke grunted, he then did a series of hand signs. He then said "Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" While shaping his right hand into a tube-like form and placing it over his mouth. He then blew from it and out came a massive ball of scorching fire.

"What?" Kakashi exclaimed. "Genin can't do fire jutsu, takes too much chakara!" just after he said that, the flames engulfed the whole area in which he was previously standing. It was a while before Sasuke's flames began to die down.

It was only then that he noticed that he hadn't hit Kakashi. '_Where did he go?_' Sasuke thought in surprise. '_Behind me? Above?_' he continued. He looked up, down, left, right, forward, and behind him. But he didn't find the white-haired man.

"Where?" Kakashi's voice rang. Just then his hand reached up from under the ground and took Sasuke from his ankle. "I'm where you least expect me..." As he said that, he pulled the boy down into the ground. His voice was heard shouting in surprise and disbelief.

"Right under your feet." Kakashi finished to the now submerged Sasuke. His whole body was underground, only his head remained over. "Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu." The jounin stated. "Can't move right? That was Shinobi Battle Techniques, Part Three: Nin-Jutsu. The elemental part. You have talent, and you were right. You are different from the others. But, different isn't always better. They say that the nail that sticks up is the one that gets hammered down."

After those words, Kakashi left. Time went by and Sasuke managed to squirm himself out of that whole. Sakura was able to get back to the original clearing, and Naruto decided to finally get a kunai from his bag and cut himself loose. Once the trio was all gathered up in the clearing, the timer on the tree stump rang. Each person felt different about that.

Sakura felt upset. She wanted to become a strong kunoichi so that she could find a new reason for living. She had been so happy that she managed to graduate from the academy, and she was even put on a team where she liked the people. Her would-be sensei wasn't that good of a teacher so far, but it was still better than Iruka at the academy.

Naruto was disappointed in himself. Maybe if he threw away all his pride and begged Kyuubi to help him out, he might have been able to beat the jounin. He probably couldn't be stopped if he had even a fraction of the Kyuubi's chakara, along with her advice and guidance. They had had two hours of wait before Kakashi got there, so he could have used that time productively and attempted to convince her to help. But no, he just had to be stubborn and try it out for himself. What an idiot.

Sasuke was the most affected by this. He knew that he needed the training from a jounin to be able to get the power to kill Itachi. But now, he lost the chance. He would have to deal with another whole year of academy and waisting his time. He didn't have any time to spare. Itachi wasn't going to wait. And time wasn't going to slow down. He missed his chance, and there wasn't any solving it.

Kakashi walked up to the trio and said "Well, I've decided. I won't send any of you back to the academy."

As he said those few little words, hope filled in each one of the young teenagers. It was as if their despair was all about to end. Naruto would get another chance to fight Kakashi, and beat him with Kyuubi's help. Sakura would be able to find a dream and follow it. She would be able to be with her friends and would be able to give that bastard Kakashi a good beating some day. And Sasuke would be able to train. To get stronger. Strong enough to complete his goal.

"You mean...!" Naruto managed to say in his upcast feeling of joy.

"Yes, all three of you are being dropped from the program, permanently." Kakashi responded with a smile.

Those words sank the hearts of the three faster than a two ton bar of diamond in the ocean. "Dropped from the program?" Sakura exclaimed. "You said that if we failed we'd be sent back to the academy! You can't just change your mind and never allow us to become real shinobi!" She finished.

"I did it because you don't think like shinobi." Kakashi explained. "You think like little kids. Like _Brats._"

That final word angered Sasuke. He was not a brat. He had been through too much to be called a brat. His emotions took over him and he charged at the jounin. Before the eye could blink, Kakashi sat atop of Sasuke, he foot over the boy's black hair and his body restraining his arm along with the rest of the corpse.

"You think its all about you." Kakashi went on, as if nothing had happened. Sasuke groaned in pain. "You don't know what it means to be shinobi. You think its a game, huh? Why do you think we put you on squads? Did you consider that question for one moment? "

"I don't know what you mean!" Sakura said, surprised at how fast this man was able to trap the academy's top student.

"I mean, you never realized what this exercise is all about." The sensei continued. "Not even close."

"What its about?" Naruto echoed. He could faintly hear Kyuubi laughing. She knew exactly what was going on, but it was clear that she was trying her best to not let herself be heard by the blond. It wasn't working much though.

"Yes, its what determines wether you pass or fail." Kakashi said.

"But thats... I mean, I wanted to ask you about that from the beginning." Sakura said quietly. She had lost all the courage she had.

Kakashi sighed. "Use your head. Three people on a squad. Why do you think we would do that?"

Naruto was becoming impatient with this guy. "How are we supposed to know why you picked three people? We didn't make the rules." He shouted in a low, serious tone.

"Its so basic." Kakashi said. He paused for a moment. "Teamwork!"

This hit all three of them by surprise. They never even tried it. Kyuubi was now laughing out loud, with no restraint. '_Couldn't even think of that one, huh kit?_' she laughed on. Naruto made a mental note to hit her the next time he was in that sewer place.

"The three of us working together, is that what you mean?" Sakura said. It was rather obvious since that would be the definition of 'teamwork' in that context.

"Thats what I mean. Its too late now, but if all three of you would have come at me, then you might have been able to take one." Kakashi said, referring to the bells.

"You set it up with three people but only two bells! That would lead to group conflict and the squad would break up!" Sakura reasoned.

"Exactly. I purposely pitted you against each other. I wanted to see if you could overcome that, and put the squad over yourselves. A genin should have a natural feel for teamwork. But you, it never even crossed your mind." Kakashi explained. Then he paused for an instant. "Sakura! You went on the defensive and didn't attempt to help either of your comrades. Naruto! You're impulsive and overconfident, you do everything on your own. And you, Sasuke, thought the others were so far beneath you that they were worthless. Arrogance. Shinobi missions are carried out in squads. Of course you need individual skills, but teamwork is the most essential element. Every shinobi understands this. On every mission your life is on the line."

As he finished his speech, he finally stood up off of Sasuke. He groaned painfully once more. Kakashi looked intently at each one of his students. He saw the pleading in each of their eyes. He sighed. "I'll give you one more chance. Eat now, and you'll have three hours to get the bells afterwards."

Hope shined again on team seven. They were being allowed a second chance! There was no way that they would blow it now. "However," Kakashi continued. This couldn't be good. "Sakura, since you did absolutely nothing other than fall under a gen-jutsu, you will _not_ be allowed to eat and will be tied to this stump."

Both Sakura's and Naruto's jaws went slack. "Thats not fair!" Sakura whined, but she was not completely against this. It was true, she had done nothing to help. At least both Naruto and Sasuke had tried.

Naruto was about to argue, to get Kakashi to pin him up instead. Sakura placed her hand on his shoulder and shook her head. She had known exactly what he was thinking, and she knew that Naruto would be of more use than she was. His shoulders stiffened and his eyes shined. '_This is not smart kit._' Kyuubi warned.

"Kakashi!" Naruto said firmly. "Pin me up instead. I was the first to get caught so its only fair."

Kakashi's eyes narrowed. "You sure you don't want to eat?" He questioned. Naruto nodded with his serious expression. "So be it."

A few minuted later, Naruto was tied to the center post by a thick rope. Sasuke and Sakura were sitting on each side of him with a small boxed lunch along with some discardable chop sticks. "Now you aren't allowed to feed Naruto under any circumstance." Kakashi warned with a deadly look in his single eye. And then, he was gone in a small poof of smoke.

Sasuke opened his lunch and began to eat slowly. Sakura was a little hesitant but an encouraging glance from Naruto pushed her to eat. They remained in silence for a little while. The only sound was the light breeze blowing through the leaves along with a few birds chirping.

The silence was soon interrupted by Naruto's rumbling stomach, loud, hollow, and craving food. Naruto, the knucklehead that he was, blushed at the sound erupting from the pit of his belly. Sasuke sighed and extended his left arm, leaving his half-eaten bento in front of the blond.

Naruto looked at the lunch, then at Sasuke. "Have it you dobe, we're going to need your strength if we want to beat that jounin."

His gaze didn't waver from his new teammate. "But–" Naruto began, but was cut off.

"Wait!" It was Sakura's voice that produced the sound. "Sasuke, keep your lunch, he can have mine. Your much more valuable to the team than I am, so Naruto should take mine. It was supposed to be his anyway." Sakura looked down at her half-eaten lunch and then left it in front of Naruto. "Go ahead."

Naruto smiled. His eyes tearing up from the joy of the moment. "Sakura-chan..." he said in a low whisper. He was reaching for his leg to get a kunai to cut the ropes. He wanted so much to break free and hug that pretty girl with pink hair. But then Kyuubi's voice brought up a new plan.

'_Stay where you are kit, let her feed it to you.'_ The smug grin was visible in her face even though he couldn't really see her. Naruto grinned to himself as well.

'_Might as well make the best of this moment.'_ He responded to Kyuubi in his mind. Kyuubi approved. "Sakura-chan, I'm sort of tied up right now." Naruto did his best to sound modest, it seemed to work.

"Ah, right." She blushed a little. "Open wide then." She said as she fed him a bite of rice. Naruto gratefully opened, closed, chewed and swallowed the small bite.

Sakura remembered that she had just been eating from those chop sticks '_Indirect kiss._' She thought, and blushed even deeper.

Before anything else could happen, storm clouds and strong winds came from nowhere, along with Kakashi. A very pissed off Kakashi. If looks could kill, well it didn't matter, with the sight Kakashi was giving the three, it made them feel as if they never wanted to have been born.

"You!" He shouted, more emotion in his voice then there ever had been. "You disobeyed me! And now..." He lowered his open hand making it almost touch the ground. It stiffened, and he held on to his wrist with his other hand. There was a blue spark, and then it burst into chakara so brilliantly that it appeared as if a thousand sparks of lightning were in the palm of his hand.

The whole time the trio was trembling in fear of their teacher. Was he really going to kill them? The three of them kept throwing out reasons why they should be forgiven, but it seemed as if it were no use.

"But you said that we had to work as a team!" Naruto yelled. He was about to beg Kyuubi to help him protect Sakura from any attack that this silver-haired, masked monster would lash out. But he noticed that Kyuubi wasn't at all worried. She didn't even seem the least bit disturbed by this. She was just quietly observing.

Maybe this was what she had wanted all along. For Naruto to get killed and her to be free. Well, wouldn't Kakashi get a surprise then.

"Kakashi-sensei! We are a team, I cannot let one of us be incapacitated for my foolishness when I have means of helping them!" Sakura said. Determination glistening in her jade eyes. She had pulled out a kunai knife and was standing in a defensive pose.

Sasuke was in a similar state. He grunted. "I agree with Sakura and Naruto." He said in a low, angry voice. It was a surprise to all of them to hear the prodigy agreeing with his _inferiors_.

Kakashi's expression did not waver. There was thunder in the background and the wind picked up. But then his single eye shifted to depict one of a smile. "You pass."


	4. Squad Seven

**GAH! It took me three days to write this chapter! These things are really hard to write. And before that I had writers block. But I have many, many ideas as to what happens after this. So this block was especially annoying. Even though I don't usually get blocks for the stories that I'm excited to write.  
>Anyway, here is where I added an extra twist to the story. I've read stories much like this one where the author rushes past these first parts. But I think that these are really important to establish good relationships between the characters. So these chapters are really important for everything else that is about to become. I also have to work hard to change the personalities of a few characters, but they have to do so in a logical way. I can't just make Sasuke a sunshine bath all of a suden. But I'm working on it! =D<br>Please review, I want feed back and opinions. And the more your review, the faster I update. And If you review, then others will see that this story has a bunch of reviews and they'll read too, and more reviews. So if you review, It'll ultimately lead to me updating more hehe**

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><p>To the three of them, it felt as if a ton of iron had been lifted off and then dropped on them. There was really no other way of explaining all the emotions going through them, even Sasuke. It felt as if a ton had been removed because they passed. Those two simple words showed that they would be able to progress. That they would be able to follow through with their goals.<p>

Yet the same two words had caused them all this grief. They had allowed this masked man to get to them. They had allowed him to manipulate their emotions pulling them back and forth then back and forth several times in the short time that they had known each other. Therefore it felt as if a ton of weight had been added to them all over again.

So the three just remained motionless. Sasuke's eyes were wide and his hands stiff. Sakura was just slightly trembling and Naruto's mouth was ajar.

But, in the end, the joy of passing was more than the irritation and frustration for Sakura. "We passed?" She asked, her voice no more than a low squeak.

Then it hit Naruto. He had passed. Together with Sakura-chan and the teme, he passed. His eyes began to water the tiniest bit making them shine brightly. Sasuke's expression relaxed and the faintest grin appeared on his face.

"You mean it?" Naruto exclaimed, now completely engulfed in joy.

"Yes." Kakashi smiled more. "In the Shinobi world, those who break the rules are scum. Thats true. But those who abandon their friends are worse than scum." Kakashi recited his favorite quote, thinking of his old teammate. "So now squad seven is official and we will begin our missions tomorrow! I'll see you then." And with those words, he disappeared in a cloud of white smoke.

"You know," Naruto said, staring blindly at the little cloud, "He's actually not that bad." Then he grinned.

"I still don't really like him that much." Sakura said.

Sasuke grunted. Though the sound wasn't much, it was enough for Naruto and Sakura to know that he agreed with Sakura. He took a kunai knife from his back pocket and then swiftly cut the ropes off of Naruto. Naruto nodded to him in gratitude, feeling that if he said any words that would kill Sasuke's _vibe. _

"Well, since we all passed and are going to be stuck with each other for awhile, why don't we go out to celebrate!" Sakura suggested. She wasn't so sure why, but she didn't feel like going home just yet and it was still a perfectly nice day.

"Sure! That sounds awesome Sakura-chan!" Naruto agreed energetically. Then he glanced to the side. He saw Sasuke with his back turned to them, slowly walking away. Then he looked back at Sakura. They nodded to each other.

Two minutes later, Naruto and Sakura were holding Sasuke by his collar, his feet dragging on the floor as he tried to stop himself. "Did you really think that you would run away, teme?" Naruto rhetorically asked the Uchiha with an amused smirk on his face.

"Honestly Sasuke. You're a part of this squad too, you know. That means that we do everything together." Sakura laughed. Naruto mirrored her with a chuckle. Sasuke just grunted disapprovingly.

After wondering around the village aimlessly for a while, they ended up at a Barbecue restaurant. Naruto was surprised that he was allowed in, but it was probably because of Sakura's deadly glare at the receptionist. They sat at a table and just chatted away while Sasuke sulked in the corner.

The Uchiha prodigy had made several attempts to escape the clutches of his team. Only to be halted by the potent glare of a certain pink haired kunoichi. This froze Sasuke's body, not even letting him blink until she turned back to Naruto.

Even Naruto himself was still slightly scared of that glare of her's. He began to wonder if there was anyone who had an even more deadly glare than her.

"_I probably do._" Kyuubi's voice echoed in the blond's mind. "_So you better make sure not to drive me to that point._" She laughed a little before fading away.

The only thing that Naruto could do in response to that was gulp loudly and hope for the best. A memory of the first time he met Kyuubi entered the foreground of his mind. When she was in her true form. He remembered the utter fear that it drove into his body. Yes, Kyuubi could be scarier than Sakura, much scarier.

It was only after twenty minutes of them being at the restaurant that Naruto tried to force the Uchiha into the conversation. "You know teme, you've mastered a pretty cool jutsu."

"Yeah! Its really rare for genin to know any elemental jutsu. And your Katon was perfect!" Sakura contributed. She was just trying to get Sasuke to open up a little more. If they were going to be a team, they would need to have their minds in perfect sync, and that was sort of hard with Sasuke always in his own world.

Sasuke only grunted in acknowledgment to their comments. At least that was something. "I wonder what element my chakara is." Naruto thought aloud.

"Me too!" Sakura chanted. "It'd be awesome if we had something that could make the other stronger!" She paused and thought for a moment. "Since Sasuke can use Katon, Fuuton would best compliment that. Raiton would also be interesting."

The pinkette smirked "Naruto, you look like you could be Raiton, with that electric hair of yours." She laughed at that.

Naruto blushed and put both his hands over his head, trying to cover up his bright hair. Sasuke grinned, finding this slightly amusing.

After conversing about several other topics, such as Kakashi-sensei and the test, Sasuke had begun interjecting his comments and opinions more often. They were still pretty one-worded, but it was a huge step for the team's relationship.

"Its not fair! He didn't tell us anything about himself, and we're supposed to trust the guy with our lives and futures?" Sakura complained.

"Yeah! He even hides his face. I really want to know what he really looks like." Naruto said while nodding.

"Maybe he's ugly." Sasuke commented, a mocking expression plastered on his face.

Naruto and Sakura both began to think on that. They tried to imagine the worst and most exaggerated faces that their sensei might hide. "Buck teeth." Naruto whispered.

A vision of Kakashi removing his mask to reveal two foot long teeth sticking out of his mouth entered the minds of the three teens. They all shivered at the goose bumps that gave them.

"Puffy lips." Sakura them murmured. Another shiverer traveled up the spines of the new genin. This time an image of their sensei with colossal, bright red lips.

"Can we talk about something else, please?" Sasuke asked with a green hue to his face. Naruto hastily nodded to that, hands slightly trembling and goose bumps still ever present on his arms.

"Yeah." Sakura said weakly. Trying to recover herself from the unwanted pictures.

It was then that four people that caught the attention of Sakura entered the dinner. There was a man wearing the standard Jounin uniform along with a blue sash under his vest. He also had a cigarette in his mouth. He was smiling cheerfully and chatting with the receptionist whom he appeared to be acquainted with.

Behind the man there were three teens who were the same age as Sakura. There was a boy who was slightly chubby. He had his hands in a bag of chips and was munching happily on them. By the expression on his face, it seemed that he really enjoyed those chips. Sakura instantly recognized him as Chouji Akimichi.

Naruto turned to look at what had Sakura so interested. He saw the man and the three genin. Shikamaru Nara looked as bored and tired as ever. Both his hands behind his head and his back leaning against the wall while the man still chatted away with the lady at the counter. You could almost hear him say "What a drag." and sigh.

The fourth person was a blond. Unlike Naruto, her hair color wasn't blindingly bright, it was more of a light brown than yellow. She was blond nonetheless. Ino Yamanaka seemed to be very irritated and unhappy. Her clear blue eyes scanned the room in front of her until they stopped to meet Sakura's gaze.

Ino's unhappy expression shifted to show a smug smile. She began walking towards Squad Seven's table, her eyes never leaving Sakura's. "Forehead! How nice of you to be here. You'll be the first to know that now I'm a full-fledged kunoichi of Konoha. I'm guessing that you were sent back to the Academy, as dumb as you are." She laughed evilly until she reached the front of the table. Her eyes widened when she saw Sasuke.

He was sitting beside Naruto, simply eating some meet that was almost burnt. "Whats got you two so distracted, the meet is burning." He murmured, slightly annoyed. Sasuke was next to the wall and was unable to see the door, so he didn't really know that his old classmates had entered the restaurant.

Well, he didn't know until Ino screamed. The rest of the people in the area ignored her. To everyone in the village, it was common knowledge that any young girl in the presence of the Uchiha was bound to act like that.

Ino had screamed for several reasons. First, Sasuke was there. That was reason enough for her emotions to spike. Since he was usually all alone somewhere training or doing whatever it is that he did. The second reason why she screamed was that he was here, but with billboard brow and Naruto. The two people she hated the most, aside from Chouji and Shikamaru who were lately bumped up on that list, where with her dear Sasuke.

The third reason wasn't something that angered her or anything like that. It was that the cool and silent Uchiha had said something. And it was not just three words, it was a full sentence! Not only that, he didn't even _have_ to say anything, he did because he just wanted to. For no reason! And that one phrase contained more emotion, as dull and common as those emotion may be, than any other set of words that she had ever heard come out of his mouth.

That alone would have been reason to make her yell. There were two good points, and one incredibly bad. The Yamanaka girl was incredibly confused as to what address first. Her rival, Sakura, or her love, Sasuke. The good or the bad. To be happy or sad.

The thought kept swirling around her head until she was unable to keep balance. She began to feel dizzy and fall. She was caught by the man that had entered the store with the trio. "What the hell is going on here?" Asked Azuma, more confused than anything.

Chouji and Shikamaru were beside the man, just watching. Shikamaru was sighing and audible said "So troublesome." while Chouji was just munching away.

"I'll explain." Said Sakura, slightly humored by this.

Sasuke had just understood the situation and was sighing like Shikamaru. "Troublesome indeed." he said in response to Shikamaru's usual comment.

Naruto was grinning broadly, holding back his laughter. But how could he not find this funny. The girl walks in to find her rival. She thinks that her rival is all depressed for not passing something that she had passed, only to find that she was having a lively conversation with the man of her dreams. And then, not only did she humiliate herself in public, but she even passed out! Only a total emo wouldn't find that funny.

Sakura looked to Naruto and smiled, then she looked at Sasuke and couldn't resist chuckling at his troubled expression. The kunoichi then returned her gaze to Azuma. "Ino here, she came to me thinking that she passed today's test and I didn't. So she wanted to make fun of me. But when she got here, she saw Sasuke, who she is infatuated with," Sasuke sighed loudly. "Seeing him, and seeing him with _me_ caused her to have too many strong emotions swirling around her head and caused her to pass out."

Chouji paused from his food to chuckle. "Stupid girl." He said and then returned to eating. Shikamaru grinned lightly, also amused with this.

The group laughed about this for a good while. But then Squad Seven decided that it was time to leave. They paid their bill and walked out. They moved along in relative silence, only bothering to say a few random comments here and there.

Meanwhile, Naruto was thinking hard on something. He was thinking wether or not to tell Sasuke about Kyuubi. They were teammates, and it would probably be a good thing if they knew something important like this.

"Hey teme, I have something to tell you." Naruto said, breaking the silence. "I want to tell you because your the only one in the team that doesn't know, and its sort of important."

Sakura looked at him, worried. She placed her hand on his arm and said "Are you sure about this?" Naruto only nodded. He was happy that Sakura was able to guess his thoughts. The kunoichi then gave him a sad smile, trying her best to cheer him on.

Sasuke gave them both a questioned glance. "What could be so important? Your crush or something?" She said teasingly with a smirk.

"No Sasuke." Sakura said, the serious gleam in her eye shining brightly. "This is really important and I really think that you should take what Naruto says seriously."

Naruto looked at her and held her gaze for a few seconds in thanks. "Really Sasuke. This is no game."

Sasuke finally caught on to the mood. His cheerfulness disappeared. It would take a while to get it back, but it would return. His eyes narrowed. "I have a feeling that I'm not really supposed to know this." He said.

"Yeah. You're right about that. Its a pretty serious secret. But you _have _to know if we want this team to work out." Naruto said.

The three silently began walking to an emptier street. Being in the middle of Konoha wasn't really the best place to discuss something of this magnitude.

"_Hey kit,"_ Kyuubi's voice resounded in Naruto's mind.

"_What is it Kyuubi?_" Naruto responded for only her to hear.

"_Look, I know this is probably hard for you. And nobody knows that I'm on your side, not even that little girlfriend of yours. But I just want to know that I'm behind you on this one._" She tried to sound as reassuring as she possible could.

Naruto mentally grinned. "_Thanks Kyuubi._" He responded, and the fox faded away.

The trio entered an empty alley. Kyuubi reassured Naruto that there wasn't anyone within earshot of them. Sakura again placed her hand on the shoulder of the blond, trying to support him as best she could. Naruto did, in fact, feel encouraged with the warmth of another in contact with his body.

"Sasuke, what do you know about the Kyuubi?" Naruto said. His expression tense and body stiff.

Sasuke became confused but answered nonetheless. "Its a monster made of mostly chakara that attacked the village thirteen years ago. It was then killed by the Yondaime. The Yondaime died while killing it, but he saved the village." He stated the few facts. He didn't bother with any specific details as he knew that it wasn't really the time to show off his intellect.

"Thats all true." Naruto said. "Except for one detail." Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Was his perfect summary wrong? "The Yondaime didn't kill Kyuubi, he sealed it. Since Kyuubi is mainly made up of chakara, it couldn't be sealed in an object or scroll or something. It had to be sealed into something living, with a will strong enough to coexist with it. So basically a human." Sasuke froze, even his breathing temporarily stopped. "Yes, that human happened to be myself."

Naruto just waited until Sasuke was able to regain his senses. First he began to breathe again, and then his muscles began to relax, one by one. It took a solid five minutes for the Uchiha's mind to fully wrap around the fact.

But why was this so shocking to him? Why did he even care? All he wanted to do was get strong enough to kill Itachi. Thats right. All this training and work was for the sole purpose of killing his brother and restoring his clan. Having such a beast on his side, would it benefit him? Maybe it would just end up killing him before he could even awaken his sharingan.

Sasuke unconsciously took a step backwards, away from Naruto. If this guy was the Kyuubi, then how could he know that he wasn't going to get killed straight away. Sasuke didn't want to leave his life in the hands of such a beast. A monster!

Naruto's stern expression fell. Sakura's eyes began to water, tears on the break of falling.

Another step back.

A tear actually rolled down Sakura's pale cheek.

Then Sasuke took off. He ran away as fast as he could. Away from the alley. Away from his _team_. Away from that monster! Sakura had stood by him. She could die for all he cared! But he wasn't going to just stand there and let himself be killed before he even tried to achieve his ultimate goal.

Naruto stared blankly at the direction where his teammate had run off to. He felt so upset, that his whole body and mind felt numb. Thats right. It was all numb. He couldn't feel a thing. He didn't _want_ to feel anything. Not pain, not disappointment, nothing. But he knew he felt both, so he just shut his mind down. Not wanting to suffer, he just shut down.

Sakura was full out crying now. Tears streaming down her face one after the other. Her face was turning red, and she had to gasp at irregular intervals to allow her body to receive oxygen. She leaned against Naruto's torso, allowing his numb body to support most of her weight. He didn't feel it at all. Her hands clutched his new shirt and the tears kept coming.

If this were a normal circumstance, Naruto would be overjoyed that sakura was leaning on him. But he couldn't feel anything. "_Kit!_" Kyuubi called loudly in his mind.

No response.

"_Kit! Answer me! Please._" She begged. Still nothing. "_Look, I know this must be hard, but that brat has been though a lot too. We can convince him otherwise. Kit! All you have to do is get to where he is and I can take care of it."_ Naruto still didn't respond to her calls.

"_Kit! I'm begging here. Really, I'm on my knees. Snap out of it!_" She tried to coax him out of it. Trying to get him back on high spirits. But the blond still didn't respond. He remained frozen while the girl of his dreams was crying against his chest, and the beast that had turned his life upside down was desperately calling for him.

He didn't want to feel it. He didn't want to feel the pain of yet another loss. Though the time he had spent with Sasuke had been short, he did feel a connection. He had felt it in the pit of his stomach that they could truly be friends. But, it seemed as if he was wrong.

"_Naruto!_" Kyuubi called again. This was the first time that she had ever called him by his name. The first.

At the sound of his name, the blond flinched. It was as if he had woken up from a nightmare. The first thing that caught his attention was the girl crying in front of him, most of her mass pushed against him. It wasn't much, but he knew that she was leaning on him with all her emotions as well as her body.

The only thing that Naruto could do was place his hand on her back. He began to move it up and down, trying to comfort the girl.

"_Kit?_" Kyuubi called once more, calming down a little.

"_Did that really just happen Kyuubi? Did Sasuke really fear me?_" Naruto asked in horror.

"_I'm afraid so kit. But Its like I've been trying to tell you! I can fix this. All you have to do is get in a three yard radios of him and I'll take care of it. Take care of your girlfriend and get going!"_ She exclaimed.

"_I hear you Kyuubi. I'm counting on you, okay?_" Naruto responded. Then he returned his attention to the girl crying against his chest.

He wrapped his other arm across her back and pulled her in a tight hug. "Its alright Sakura-chan." He whispered.

"Bu- But...!" She said in between sobs. She un-clutched her fists which had still been attached to his shirt and she slung her arms around his neck, hugging him as if her life depended on it. "How could... could he b- be so... so cruel?" She gasped, tears still falling.

Naruto's face softened. "Sakura-chan, really, its okay. Its more than enough for me to know that you would get so worked up for me. But I still don't like to see you cry."

The pinkette pulled away to look him in the eye. His cerulean eyes were soft and sad. While her emerald eyes were outlined by an ugly red and filled with tears. The small act of looking into the blond's eyes helped calm Sakura. Her tears began to slowly stop and were soon reduced to occasional sobs and sniffs.

"Look Sakura-chan," Naruto said, his finger wiping away lone tears from her face "What teme did really hurt me, but I'm going to fix it. We're still a team after all." A weak smile forced itself to his face. "Kyuubi said that she can fix it if I just get close enough to him, so you don't have to worry."

Sakura was slightly confused, but she didn't pry. She didn't know that Naruto and Kyuubi had any sort of communication, but if he said he had a way of patching things up, she would believe him. She nodded lightly. "Let me walk you home, okay Sakura-chan?" Naruto offered. She nodded again and looked down at the floor.

They walked the whole way without uttering a word. Naruto had one arm draped around Sakura's shoulders to make sure that she didn't fall or anything. When they reached her house, they parted also without saying anything.

"_Alright Kyuubi, where's Sasuke!_" Naruto called into his mind.

Kyuubi replied almost instantly. "_He should be at the training grounds where you were earlier today. You have to sneak up on him, okay? Just get close enough and then clam your mind._" she was rather hast in her orders, but Naruto silently nodded and jumped onto a rooftop. He jumped form roof to roof, his determination obvious in his face.

A few jounin and chunin spotted Naruto on the way. They all were positive that he was pulling another one of his pranks and were determined to stop him. All began to chase him and try to see any sort of item that he would be using for the prank. However, as soon as they looked at his face, they stopped dead in their tracks.

Was that really Naruto? With that serious look in his eye? The pursuers remained still as Naruto continued on to his destination. He arrived at the training grounds and immediately slowed his stride and silenced his movements.

Just a Kyuubi had predicted, there was Sasuke. He sat atop one of the stumps, clearly deep in thought. Naruto quickly and quietly traveled through the forest until he was behind the Uchiha. Then he began to tiptoe towards him.

After a few silent strides, Naruto heard Kyuubi call "_Thats enough, stay right there._" She paused. "_Now calm your mind. I know thats not the easiest thing right now, but try your best._"

She was right. It wasn't easy for Naruto to clam his mind. The best he could do was return to that state of no feeling. But that wasn't what she needed. He snapped himself out of it in only a minute or so, still making no noise. Sasuke was pretty deep in his thoughts, so if Naruto even made a little noise, it would be hard for him to notice.

After another few minutes of utter silence, Naruto was finally able to relax. He felt his consciousness fade away, and then he was back in the sewer.

"Kyuubi?" He called, only to be responded by his own echo. "You in here?" He called again.

There was a few minutes of silence. Then, a grunt sounded across the tunnel, followed by a deep sigh.

Naruto looked around, and then he heard a gasp. Kyuubi's human silhouette came into view. She was slouched down holding another corpse, dragging him along. Naruto's eyes widened when he saw Sasuke's unconscious body being dragged by Kyuubi.

"What'd you do to him?" Naruto exclaimed. He was furious at her, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

"Calm down kit!" Kyuubi said. "He's fine. His body is out there sleeping just like yours. All we have to do is get his consciousness in here. I got most of it, but not enough of his mind is present for him to remember anything afterwards."

Naruto calmed himself. His gaze dropped to the floor as he began to think. Then an idea surged to him. "Oh Sasuke!" He called in a high pitched voice, almost singing. "I see Ino and more of your groupies. They're going to glomp you!" He continued chanting. Naruto was fully aware that this was one of Sasuke's only fears.

As planned, Sasuke jumped up from Kyuubi's hold, only to trip on his own feet and fall face-first in the sewer water. He stumbled back to his feet and he looked around nervously. He found no girls in sight, only Naruto and something that was wearing the body of a woman.

The Uchiha sighed in relief to see that he was not in danger of being attacked. He then locked eyes with Naruto. His expression dropped from surprised, to neutral and then fell even further to angry.

Naruto didn't move, not even a muscle. "Look Sasuke. I know you think that I'm the Kyuubi, and that I'm a monster, but I'm not!"

Kyuubi looked down, she was sad that she was causing such a nice boy so much pain a grief. She decided then and there that she would find a way to repay her host for all that he lost because of her. Somehow, someday, she would make it up to him. But for now, she would start off by helping him mend the rift in his relationship with the young Uchiha.

"Hey Duck-butt!" Kyuubi called to him. Sasuke looked at her, not because he identified _Duck-butt_as his name, but because he became curious to what this beast in the corpse of a human was talking about. "I'm talking to you Uchiha. My name is Kyuubi, and Naruto here is my Jinjuriki, thats right, he's nothing more than a host. I am the monster that you fear."

Sasuke flinched at the angry voice that the orange haired _thing_ had used with him. He was then even more shocked that it stated that _he_, the sole surviver of the mighty Uchiha clan, had feared it. Could he even feel something like fear?

That instant, an image of Itachi entered his mind. It flashed into his brain for no more than half a second. His brother stood above him, sword in hand and that eerie sharingan of his active. Yes, he could feel fear.

But fearing his brother and fearing that knucklehead were two different things. But the fact was, he wasn't the least bit afraid of the Naruto that stood before him. He felt more terrified of that thing that wore the body of a human in an orange Kimono as well as her bright orange hair and piercing red eyes.

It clicked in his mind that that thing was the Kyuubi. It had even said so, but only now, while looking it in the eye, did he see that it was in fact the beast. Those eyes blew fear into Sasuke, even though he could tell that there was no aggression in them. They were perfectly calm and sincere, but they still shot the cold and menacing emotions into him.

Naruto just stood there, watching Sasuke and Kyuubi stare each other down. After about half a minute of silence, Sasuke's hands began to tremble. The blond noticed that he had looked at Kyuubi in the eye. Big mistake. If Naruto had not seen Kyuubi's true form, just staring into her eyes would scare the hell out of him. But after the scare of their first meeting, and learning how nice of a soul she really was, he couldn't fear her from the pit of his being, not in this form anyway.

It was a completely different story when she was pissed off. But that was the same feeling he got from Sakura when she was angered. So that couldn't really count as blood-twisting _fear._ It was close, but not quite to the point.

"Sasuke..." Naruto whispered. Though his voice was low, it the sound waves grew and expanded thanks to the hollow make-up of the sewer. His whisper was perfectly audible from all angles. This stopped Sasuke's trembling. The Uchiha allowed his eyes to narrow as he tried to inject his own aura of fear into Kyuubi.

Kyuubi wasn't even fazed by the glare. "Look brat, you might hate me, and fear me, but Naruto has nothing to do with it. He's the same dobe that you've always known. The only difference is that he has a voice that talks to him now."

Naruto groaned. "Well when you put it like that is sounds horrible! Its not my fault I have you sealed inside of me and you talk." His face was pouting and his voice was childish.

'_Yeah, thats the dobe alright._' Sasuke thought, a drop of sweat rolling down his forehead.

"So just lay off him, and work as a team." Kyuubi was now almost begging.

"Look, I don't have anything against that dobe right there." Sasuke said while pointing his finger in the direction of a still moping Naruto. The blond's expression instantly lightened. "But how do I know that you won't take control of his body or something?"

Kyuubi sighed loudly. "I guess I'd be suspected of this at some point. Look, I don't really want to be out there in the real world. Its way too troublesome, too many people want to kill me and stuff. So I'm just planning on quietly staying inside Naruto for the remainder of his lifetime. Helping him out when I can to make up for all the grief I caused him." She was really speaking her mind right now, hoping that she could get Naruto to understand how sorry she felt for the things she did while under the influence of Uchiha Madara. Of course she didn't blame Uchiha Sasuke for the misdoings of his relatives.

Sasuke looked from Kyuubi to Naruto, then back to Kyuubi. "Fine." He said. "I believe you, I guess. It makes sense what your saying. If I were in a situation where everyone wanted me dead, then I would much rather rest peacefully and watch someone else live their life happily. Though I guess that might be rather boring."

Kyuubi chuckled. "You have no idea!" This reaction caused Sasuke to smirk. "Do you know how torturous it is to be inside Naruto when he's all lovey-dovey with Sakura? He even tried to hug me after!"

Sasuke now laughed fully. "I can so picture this dobe doing that!" He laughed.

"Hey! I'm still here you know!" Naruto whined.

Kyuubi and Sasuke paused their laughter. They looked at each other and held that gaze for a few seconds. Then both broke back into laughter and Naruto began to sulk.

"Okay, I'll wake you two up now. I bet that Sakura is worried about both of you." Kyuubi said after calming herself down. She was still grinning and letting out a few chuckles here and there.

"Thanks Kyuubi!" Naruto chanted, now apparently over the fact that she had just made fun of him.

"Yeah, and I'm sorry. I over reacted." Sasuke said, an apologetic shine in his onyx eyes.

Naruto gasped loudly in surprise. This made both Kyuubi and Sasuke turn to him, scared that something might have gone wrong. But Naruto was comically frozen in a weird stance while pointing at Sasuke. "I can't believe it!" He shouted. "Teme just apologized to someone!"

Sasuke felt disappointed in himself. He had worried that there was something actually the matter. How dumb of him. Nothing could ever be important f it got Naruto worked up. Seriously, even Sasuke had manners.

Kyuubi was more irritated than anything. She had worried over nothing. And now came out the one side of her that came close to making Naruto fear her. Her angry side. Her eyes flared in fury and her fists clenched. "Kit, you idiot!" She screeched. "Get the hell outta here and leave me in peace!" She punched him straight in the jaw, sending him flying.

Naruto hit the roof of the sewer and then disappeared. Kyuubi took several deep breaths. Then she managed to calm herself. "Kit'll take care of explaining where this place is and stuff. Now you get out too." she snapped her fingers rather hastily and Sasuke also disappeared. "What am I going to do with him?" She called, letting her voice echo in the tunnel.

Kyuubi stomped back past the bars that framed one end of the tunnel. She slipped right in between them with no difficulty. Then her body began to glow a bright red. When the light faded, an enormous orange fox was left in the cage. It slid to the floor with a loud thump. Then it sighed. "Finally some peace and quiet." Her eyes shut and she began to sleep.


	5. Comfort

**Hai peoplez! I got this chapter typed up a lot sooner than I expected =D  
>That, or time really flies hehe. Anyway, Just a heads up that I used the last part of this chapter, starting when Sakura wakes up, in an English assignment. So I'm sorry if it sounds weird or pointless or something. This chapter doesn't contain much other than a lot of emotions running around.<br>I think its still worth reading though, since it contributes to building character.  
>Sorry that its kind of short, but We're going to get to more exciting things next chapter<br>Reviews are very much appreciated =D  
>Thanks for reading!<strong>

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><p>Naruto had immediately awoken after being tossed, or rather, thrown at the wall. He then saw Sasuke. He was still sitting atop of a the stump. Both his elbows were on his legs and were supporting his head. His eyes remained closed for another fifteen seconds until they opened.<p>

Sasuke's head shot up He looked frantically around, analyzing his surroundings. He caught sight of Naruto who was standing behind him. '_Was that all a dream?_' the Uchiha asked himself. He stared at Naruto in the eye. '_No, couldn't be. So the beast is alright, and its on the dobe's side? I guess I can live with that._'

In between the two stares of the boys, there was understanding and agreement. Naruto felt happy. He had managed to convince one person that he was Naruto and Kyuubi was Kyuubi. He should be able to change the opinions of the rest of the village, one by one.

The two teens nodded to each other, and then both jumped off in different directions. Naruto then suddenly remembered Sakura. She had been crying hysterically on his chest. Though thinking back on it now, Naruto wished that he could have been _conscious,_ or so to speak, at the time.

He rushed in the direction of her house, arriving there in almost no time at all. Since when could he run that fast? Whatever, that had no importance, not compared to Sakura's wellbeing. Naruto closed his eyes, calling for Kyuubi. He was pretty sure that Sakura was in the house, but he didn't want any unnecessary conversation with her mother, so he was planning on going to the window closest to her.

Kyuubi, however, didn't respond. This had been the only time since their first interaction that she didn't answer to Naruto's call. He became worried. He concentrated deep into himself, he was sure that a little more and he would drag himself to the sewer. But then he heard a soft sound. Well it sounded soft from where he was, but as he continued to go deeper into himself it became louder.

After a few moments, Naruto was able to identify that it was the sound of snoring. Kyuubi was asleep. Was that even possible? Didn't she rest when he did? Guess not. Maybe she was just tired because she dragged teme into his mind. Naruto sure as hell didn't put any effort into doing that, and it wasn't something that seemed easily done.

All this was still unimportant. All he knew now was that he could either wait for Kyuubi to wake up, which could take who knows how long, or figure this out on his own. He chose the later because he was really worried about Sakura by now.

'_So,_' Naruto thought _'How do I find her?_' He continued. He thought about trying to sneak into the house, but that probably wasn't a very good idea. If he got caught then that would lead to a lot of troublesome explaining and talking. Now was not the time.

The blond continued to ponder over this for a few minutes. In the end, he concluded that running around the house and peaking into all the windows would be a good way to start. He might even find her. First he went to the door and checked the windows on its sides. Nothing.

Next he went though the windows that went along the the left of the door across the west wall. He saw the living room and Sakura's mother reading a book on the couch in that room. The next thing he found was the kitchen.

On the north side of the house, he saw more of the kitchen and a blurry bathroom was also seen through an opaque window. But still no sign of Sakura.

On the east side, there were glass doors that led from the living room into the garden. Naruto was surprised to realize that he had already been on Haruno land since he had been checking out the kitchen and stuff. Did he jump over a fence or something? He should have. The idiot seems to have short term amnesia now. Great.

Anyway, he wasn't able to find her by looking in from the east or from the other side of the front door. Then Naruto looked up. He saw a balcony over his head, as well as a few window ledges. He gulped. '_Second floor, here I come!_' He thought weakly.

He pumped a minimal amount of chakara into his feet and managed to quietly launch himself up onto the balcony. Then he tried as fast and quietly as possible to hold his body as close to the side railing as he possible could, there was a risk of being seen by Sakura's mother, or worse, her father. Naruto shivered at the thought.

Naruto peaked into the room, and sure enough, it was the master bedroom. But it was completely empty. A sigh of relief exited the blond's mouth.

Naruto continued to cautiously look into windows. He found a guest bedroom, another bathroom as well as a study that was filled to the brim with books. He was beginning to think that he might have gotten the wrong house or something. He he was sure that it had Sakura's sweet aroma and style all over it. Maybe a very friendly neighbor?

But Naruto decided to check the last window anyway. Yup, and there she was. She was bound to be in the last room he checked. There was no other option, it was Naruto, he had to have bad luck.

Sakura was still crying. She had her head on her bed, fists clutching the covers. "Sakura-chan..." Naruto whispered. she worried so much about him. It made him happy and sad at the same time. He knew that she was there for him, no matter what. This brought a huge amount of warmth to his heart. It felt... nice.

However, there was a thing that wasn't nice. It was that Naruto had been such and idiot! He had followed through all the antics of slowly and carefully looking through every window and analyzing every room. It would have saved a lot more time to man up and knock on the front door. Surly Sakura's mother would understand and allow him to comfort her. But no! Naruto wanted to play stealthy. But if her _was_ stealthy, he should have been able to sense her chakara an jump straight up to her room. Or maybe even pump enough chakara into his ears to enhance his hearing enough to hear her sobs.

Naruto was an idiot. That was a fact. Be there was no helping it now. He had the woman he loved crying in front of him, and there wasn't any more reason for her to be like that. Naruto and Sasuke had made up, so she should be happy, smiling. A smile should always, _always_ be on Haruno Sakura's face.

He felt ashamed that he allowed this to go on longer than it should have. Now the only thing he could do was finally allow her to stop. The idiotic expression that contained panic, sadness and embarrassment disappeared from Naruto's face. It was replaced by a soft and understanding smile. Now the blond looked truly beautiful. It was always the gleam in his eye that distinguished a fake expression from the real thing. This was the real thing.

The blond lifted his hand and lightly knocked on the window. Sakura didn't react at all to it. There was another knock, slightly louder. The pinkette stirred. She slowly lifted her head to find Naruto crouching on her window ledge, his arms on either wall to balance himself.

So many thoughts and emotions passed through Sakura's body the second she caught sight of Naruto. So many questions erupted in her brain, screaming at her to say them out loud. Sakura ignored all of them though. She ignored the rational and logical thoughts that her oversized brain was thinking. Instead, she followed her irrational and uneven emotions.

Sakura stood up, shaking still. Then she struggled with her fingers to get the window open. She managed to get the lock off, but she was still unable to push it up, she had lost all the strength in her arms. Naruto, with that innocent and concerned smile, noticed this and lifted the glass himself. It was now obvious that he was waiting for Sakura to stand back so that he could get in, but she did the opposite.

She launched herself with all the strength that her legs had left into his arms. It'd be a lie to say that Naruto wasn't surprised at the arms now suddenly placed around his neck, but it'd also be a lie to say that he didn't enjoy it. "Sakura-chan..." He whispered. It sounded really soothing, and it managed to calm the girl down the slightest. Naruto placed one arm across her back, while the other was still on the window frame, supporting the weight of two people now.

Somehow, Naruto had managed to get himself and Sakura out of the window and to sit them on the floor, back leaning against the bed. He didn't sit on the bed because he was afraid that it might make Sakura feel uncomfortable.

Sakura was still crying and sobbing in between sniffles and gasps. Really, Naruto should be in the same state. It was him who was crushed. She preferred him to be numb with the shock rather than him comforting her. Naruto had just been completely betrayed by someone who he trusted. By his teammate, rival and even friend. And Sakura was useless to do anything about it.

If she was the least bit strong, she would have run up to Sasuke and had given him a nice slap across the face. But she felt to sad for Naruto to be able to do that. Just picturing herself in his position, made her burst back into tears.

She was crying against his warm chest. His new shirt completely drenched in her tears. Sakura didn't know how long she hand been crying against him. All she knew was that each time she looked up to his concerned face, she saw he was only worried about her, and that just made her cry all over again. He whispered her name several times. He rubbed her back with his warm hands. But all this just made it worse.

Naruto felt completely useless. The woman he loved was now crying up against him. And he was completely conscious of it. He was glad it was against him and not some bed or another person. But it still didn't feel good. Her bright red eyes and flushed cheeks took away from her beauty. The sobs and gasps exiting from her mouth only made her voice sound rasp and dry.

This was not a pretty sight. Still, in his eyes, she was beautiful. She was beautiful because she was doing all this for him. "Sakura." He now said firmly. He didn't even add the '-chan' at the end. He wanted this to stop. The only time that she should be in his arms is when she is smiling and when she is happy. Or even better, that she is happy _because_ she is in his arms. But that was too much to ask for right now. Now she just had to stop the tears.

"Sakura, please listen to me." Naruto almost begged. He then waited. She slowly began to calm. First the gasps settled into deep breaths. The sniffles settled down and were less frequent. Then she looked up at him. A few lone tears traveling down her cheeks still.

"Listen Sakura, teme and I made up. He knows that I'm Naruto and not Kyuubi. Plus, he even got to meet her and they had fun making fun of me. Its all better now. We're alright. You can stop crying now." Then he shook his head. "No, I'm begging you, please stop crying." The plea was present in his bright, cerulean eyes.

"Bu...but–" Sakura began but was cut off by Naruto pressing his lips softly against hers.

He held his lips there for only a few seconds. His heart racing, threatening to pound its way out of his chest. He ignored his heard that seemed more like a swarm of buzzing bees. Naruto pulled back and stared into her eyes. The emerald eyes that were surrounded by red. He didn't care, they were still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

"Sakura, I'm the happiest person in the world right now. So please, _please_ don't cry." Naruto said. The blush was clear on his tan face, but he didn't care. He wrapped his arms around Sakura's shoulders and pulled her against his chest. "Please don't cry." He repeated, this time no higher than a whisper.

Sakura had stopped her crying. She still sniffled and her face was still red, but the tears had stopped. Now she was trying to process what Naruto had just said. Kyuubi, apparently a girl, had managed to convince Sasuke that Naruto was not her, but himself. Sasuke managed to believe her, and then they both made fun of and joked around with Naruto. So it was all better now. The three of them could be a happy team.

But did Naruto just _kiss_ her? She felt his soft, warm lips press against hers. That was what silenced her. She didn't even know what she had been trying to say. But that was her first kiss! And now here he was, holding her like the most precious thing in the world. This was the third time that she was against his chest today. But something was different.

Sakura could hear something different. She shut her eyes and pressed herself closest to his warm chest. She then was able to identify what the noise was. It was his pounding heart. It has going really fast and loud. Did she make it pound like that?

She then closed her eyes and tried to feel her own. It was also going fast. Was it because of the crying or because of Naruto? Maybe even both. "Naruto, your heart." Sakura whispered.

"Its because of you Sakura-chan." He replied. He armed tightened around her shoulders, and Naruto felt so happy.

The pinkette noticed that he returned to calling her the way that he usually did. This calmed her some. She remembered the previous day, when Naruto said that he loved her. Did she love him back? With the way her heart was pounding, and the way she had reflexively thrown herself at him several times that day hinted that she did.

Wait! Maybe she was just feeling weak. Many books had the female protagonist fall in love with the guy because he was there for her when she was feeling down. Its true that everyone feel better when they are hugged. Thats why she leaned on Naruto, because having someone's arms around them always makes you feel better. So maybe this wasn't love.

Sakura couldn't decide something like that at a moment like this. She couldn't. Her mind wasn't working straight and having him right there also didn't help. Plus, if she happened to notice that she didn't like him that way, there was no way to tell him, not after the reaction Sasuke gave to Kyuubi.

All these things pointed to one fact. Now wasn't the time. Plus, it was already dark outside. Tomorrow was Saturday, but they still needed their rest.

"Naruto, thank you." She said.

"Its my job." He said, and even though she couldn't see it, Sakura was sure that there was a smile on his soft lips.

Sakura blushed, remembering how soft and smooth his lips really were. "I think you should go now, my dad'll probably be home soon." She said, thinking of the first excuse that came to mind. She really needed to be alone right now. There were many things to think about.

"Are you sure your okay?" Naruto asked, releasing her from his hold. Sakura nodded slowly. "Well, then I'll see you." He said. He stood up and the bent down to hiss her forehead. Then he jumped out the window.

Sakura followed the blond with her gaze until he was no longer in sight. Then, she collapsed onto her bed. She shut her eyes and began to sleep in no time at all, deciding that it would be better to think about Naruto the next day. In her dreams, the most prominent figure was a certain blond.

Morning came and Sakura awoke to the annoying sound of her alarm clock, buzzing, beeping as well as irritating the living daylights out of the girl. She slammed her fist down on the clock, with force enough to rival that of a gorilla, and groaned loudly.

Rolling her body to the other side of her bed, her eyes lazily began to open. '_Do I have to get up?_' She thought to herself. Though she had slept pretty well, body remaining still and not rustling much, dreams soothing and calm, it was still a pain to get up in the morning.

Sakura then remembered exactly what the dreams were about. '_Naruto..._' She thought. Remembering the blond boy still caused her to blush. He had stolen her first kiss, innocent and pure, and she didn't feel the slightest bit mad about it Usually she would have burst in rage and have sent him flying to the next planet over. Maybe it was because she had been out of energy. She did do a lot of things yesterday.

The alarm, a hunk of red plastic with a battery inside which was about to be crushed, rang once more. Sure enough, the deadly fist of Sakura fell upon it. Bye bye clock, I'll see you in the garbage disposal. '_Note to self:_' Sakura thought as she began to sit up, _'Buy yet another alarm clock. Metal this time_.'

Feet dragging and slightly wobbling, Sakura stumbled her way to the bathroom. She glanced at the mirror and was astounded by what she saw. Her emerald eyes still had that deep red outline to them. Resisting the urge to run back to her bed, Sakura continued to analyze her face. Her cheeks were still puffed up and her hair was a complete disaster. She groaned loudly and stepped into the shower, magic rejuvenation machine.

Mind wandering while the warm water engulfed her body. Was it really love she felt towards Naruto? It couldn't be the same thing she had felt for Sasuke, because fit it were she wouldn't have hesitated to practically strangle the poor boy in a hug. He could probably withstand that though.

Maybe he loved him as a friend. Friends are supposed to love each other, its what makes friendship so strong and powerful. Still, Sakura knew that if Naruto were just a friend, she would have punched him in the jaw anyway after the short kiss.

Sakura sadly exited the shower. The warm water really did wonders to her. Looking in the mirror again she saw her usual self. Emerald eyes shining, pink hair going down to the middle of her back, all smooth and clean.

The pinkette proceeded to brush her teeth and dry her hair. Her mind was relatively quiet at the moment. The next thing on Sakura's agenda was her favorite morning activity. Clothes! She ran to her closet with nothing more than a towel covering her body. She then opened the doors to her closet and began browsing though them.

She grabbed her favorite red dress. She put it on and admired herself in the mirror. Then she decided against wearing that, she would probably end up getting it dirty. Rushing though another few dozen outfits, she finally found the perfect one. Simple, jeans shorts that went halfway up her thigh and a tank top, cute and pink.

Sakura began to make her way out of her room when she remembered that she had to cross out today's box on the calendar. As she walked towards the wall which held the calendar, a sad revelation appeared. It was Saturday.

She didn't have to go anywhere. Her sensei hadn't even set the date for the next time they would train. The girl, irritated beyond compare, threw herself onto her bed. She moaned loudly and became even more irritated.

Then the voice of her mother echoed up the stairs and into her room. "Sakura honey! A bird just dropped off a letter for you. It says its form Kakashi. Do you know anyone by that name?"

As soon as the name 'Kakashi' entered Sakura's ear, she immediately thought '_Sensei!_' and her irritation vanished as if it had never been there.

Sakura rushed down the stairs and greeted her mother. Then she took the letter into her hands and read it.

"_Dear Squad Seven,_

_Starting today we will meet every day, and I mean every day, at 7:30AM at the Training Area 11 to train. If you get there late, you will do an extra forty laps around the area. Anyway, please hurry up and don't forget your equipment and your brains. I know some of you are prone to forget their brains but try not to._

_Regards,_

_Hatake Kakashi"_

Sakura now felt happy, she hadn't woken up early for nothing. But she was beginning to feel mad at her sensei. Everyday, at seven in the morning? Was this man trying to kill them. She was scared to think of the training he had in mind, but she was eager to become stronger.

So off to Training Area 11 she went, looking forward to seeing a certain blond.


	6. Training

**I'm sorry for the delay people! I was stuck with a lot of work plus lazyness plus writer's block. hehehe  
>This chapter what fun to write... the end at least. I hope that you guys like it =)<br>If you think that something is wrong please don't hesitate to tell me, I'm always looking to improve.  
>Just a heads up, I've got this planned until the middle of the chunin exams. Its not written down anywhere, but i do have it basically thought out. I might change a few things but i'm guessing i'll follow the basic path. there was this thing that i didn't plan. i never planned to make Sasuke meed kyuubi in person (so to speak) and also i didn't plan to have Sakura and Naruto kiss so soon. at first i wanted to write 'hug' there but it ended up as 'kiss' hehehe ^^  
>But i guess both turned out for the better. and originally i planned for Sasuke to accept Naruto and kyuubi right off the bat. but then i felt that it was too sappy and... you know.. cheesy. So i made he be scared. try something different form the average fic. it didn't end up much of a problem though.<br>oh well.**

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><p>Naruto awoke to a sound of tapping on his window. He moaned loudly and spun over on his bed, not showing any signs of getting up. The tapping continued. The blond slightly opened one eye and saw that there was a messenger hawk on his windowsill. '<em>Kit, it has a scroll tied to it's leg. Maybe its something important.<em>' Kyuubi's voice rang through his mind.

He moaned once more before slowly raising his torso. He opened the window which stood above his bed and the bird flew in. It flew a few circles around the room before setting itself on Naruto's shoulder and outstretched its leg for Naruto to pull the note.

"_Dear Squad Seven,_

_Starting today we will meet every day, and I mean _every day_, at 7:30AM at the Training Area 11 to train. If you get there late, you will do an extra forty laps around the area. Anyway, please hurry up and don't forget your equipment and your brains. I know some of you are prone to forget their brains but try not to._

_Regards,_

_Hatake Kakashi"_

The note was pretty clear. Naruto turned his head to look at the clock on the wall. It was Seven twenty. "Damn!" Shouted the blond as he stumbled out of his bed. The hawk was now long gone and Naruto ran to the shower. He didn't wait for the water to warm and he took the shower cold. Then he brushed his teeth and grabbed the first thing out of his closet. It was a pair of black sweat pants and an orange t-shirt with a black triangle in the middle. Inside the black triangle there was an orange swirl, this was so on both the front and back of the shirt, as well as on each sleeve.

With no time for breakfast, Naruto simple took an apple from the counter and began eating that while he strapped on his various weapon pouches to each leg. By the time he was half done the apple, he had also fastened his sandals and was running out the door to the training area.

Sasuke had already been awake for a while and had started training in the park near his apartment. He did so every morning. Since children didn't start going to that park until nine in the morning, he used it to do push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups and all those things that increase stamina and strength.

He had been doing his usual routine for around ten minutes when he felt a hawk land on his shoulder. Sasuke's first reaction was surprise, but he then realized that the bird was no threat. He looked at the bird and it looked back with piercing yellow eyes, tilting its head in the slightest. Then it stuck out it's leg. The young Uchiha took the note and as the hawk flew off, he read it. He smirked when he read the joke about forgetting their brains. It was obviously referring to Naruto. Sasuke gathered his things and began walking towards the designated training grounds.

Sasuke was the first to arrive, so he just stood, leaning against a tree, waiting. Sakura arrived next. "Good Morning!" She said, and the Uchiha responded with a grunt. Sakura sat on the grass next to Sasuke and waited for their sensei. Kakashi arrived, for once, on time. He carried a bag that appeared to be heavy. Sakura gulped, was he going to torture them? She wouldn't put it past him.

"Good morning gang." Kakashi said, a smile visible by how his single eye closed.

"Morning." Sakura responded weakly, and Sasuke again grunted.

"Where's Naruto?" The masked man said while looking around.

"Wait! I'm not late!" Naruto's voice entered the area. He was visibly seen panting and sweating as he ran up to the others. "I'm... on... t– time." He said between gasps for air.

"No Naruto, you are late. Anyone who gets here after me is considered late, so you are going to do forty more laps around the whole training area." Kakashi's eye showed anger and yet sadistic amusement from this. "Now the three of you, put these on." He commanded while handing a pair of black wrist bands and thick, black anklets that matched. They all had a white Konoha symbol on the front.

The three genin obeyed and put them on. They then stood in front of their sensei with confused expressions on their faces. "You might be wondering what these are." Kakashi said as he placed his hands in the sign for ram. "Well... Katsu!" he screamed. The trio them felt immense weight added to their arms and legs.

"What the hell are these!" Naruto exclaimed now on his knees and struggling to try to stand.

"You dumbass, their weights. But so much!" Sasuke said, on only one knee but it was apparent by his expression that he could fall any second.

Sakura wasn't doing much better. She was on her hands and knees, unable to barely move.

"Your right Sasuke, they are weights. About twenty-five pounds a piece. Makes it one hundred total." Kakashi said while looking down on his students. "Now I'll teach you how to deactivate them once your used to it, but you can't take them off unless you really need to. Understood?" He received three moans in response.

Kakashi grinned evilly. "Sasuke, Sakura, you two are going to do forty laps around the training area. Naruto, since you got here late, you have to do eighty. Good luck!" He gave them a thumbs up and disappeared with a cloud of smoke.

The grey haired man was now sitting atop a tall tree, all his attention focused on a book titled 'Icha Icha Paradise'. Occasionally, the jounin shifted his gaze to the genin team bellow him. Sasuke had settled into a pained jog while Naruto was dragging his feet and Sakura not to far behind him.

'_This is too heavy for me!_' Sakura thought. '_Theres no way I can do forty laps! I probably can't even manage one!_' She groaned at the torment emitting from her now strained muscles.

Before long, Naruto had managed to get himself the slightest bit accustomed to these weights. He had settled into an even paced jog and was now moving right beside Sasuke. Sasuke still had a lap over him, but that was because he had managed to settle into a more stable pace sooner.

Sakura wasn't doing as well though. She was still dragging her feet along the fence of the training field. Sakura tried to calculate the total distance she would have to _run. _She figured that it might help calm her system if she thought of it in terms of numbers. If she remembered correctly, Training Field Seven had a diameter of four-hundred yards. That would make a run around the place a considerable amount less than a mile. But it was closer to a mile than half. Since she had to run around it forty times, that left her with around twenty-nine miles to run. She had already finished one lap and close to a half. So that left roughly twenty-eight miles to run.

After her long mental calculations, Sakura noticed that it didn't make her feel any better. She wracked her brain for any information that might help her in this case. It was now that she realized that even after being put through so many years of the Academy, all that history of tools and people never really would be helpful in the real world. The pride that the pinkette had for having such high scores in these subjects fell down the drain when she realized that it wouldn't really help her.

With forcing her arms and legs to more with much more than she was used to, added with the constant thinking she made her brain do, Sakura began to develop a head ache. She mentally cursed herself. From all times in her life, she had chosen now to rant at herself in her own brain. Hearing her inner complain to her about the pain and demanding for her to do something about it, Sakura sent some chakara to her nerves system to give it a little more strength to work through this. A few dragged steps later, her head ache had dulled to a minuscule tingling sensation in the back of her head. '_Thank kami that I can control my chakara so well_.' Sakura praised herself.

She moved along another quarter lap in relative silence before it hit her. '_Chakara!_' She thought loudly. So loud that her inner began grumbling in the back of her mind demanding that she shut up. Sakura paid no mind to her and tried channeling some of her chakara into her legs. The burden immediately felt lighter.

The pinkette felt complete satisfaction with herself as she was finally able to settle into a more even pace. Just then Naruto and Sasuke jogged past her. They were running at an incredible pace for the weight they carried. It was obvious that they had made this into a race. Sakura was also sure that they weren't using any chakara like she was because Naruto was unable to and Sasuke wouldn't play so low as to win a competition like that. His Uchiha pride couldn't allow him to cheat.

Naruto was pushing all his strength to his legs and Kyuubi gave him an encouraging comment every few minutes. She didn't give him any advice, just a short _'Do your best!_' or something like that. The blond had gotten used to the weights sooner than he had thought was possible. He still felt them of course, and they were as heavy as hell, but it wasn't so much as to have him dragging along the floor. Naruto was determined to beat Sasuke in this foot race. First to finish the forty laps wins.

'_Seventeen!_' Sasuke thought as he crossed the start point, Naruto an inch or two a head of him. _'Damned dobe! I can't let him beat me!_' He continued. Sasuke was surprised that he had never thought of using weighted training clothes. It would have greatly helped him progress. And if he used them all day, like he was planning to do with Kakashi's, he wouldn't have to worry about minor distractions from his training since whatever he did would be training with these weights.

But even though Sasuke constantly trained his body to improve his tai-jutsu, Naruto was still ahead of him! How was that even possible. He knew that the dobe wasn't close to smart enough to use chakara on his arms and legs. He also had pride and wouldn't win a competition like that. Sasuke doubted that Naruto even had the control to be able to direct the chakara.

The Uchiha was also pretty sure that Kyuubi wasn't going to help him. He had met her, and for the short time that he knew her, he was sure that she was the type to only intervene when it was absolutely necessary or just simply fun. As the two passed the starting point again, Sasuke noticed Kakashi's amused smirk. Yes, he was now positive, Kyuubi was enjoying this. She was enjoying seeing Naruto, and probably him too, suffer as they tried to run at the pace of a little kid.

Kakashi followed Naruto and Sasuke with his single eye. '_Should have known that they'd make a competition out of this._' He thought. '_Its making them go faster though. Having a brotherly rivalry is always a good thing during training._' He smiled happily at that.

Just then Sakura jogged passed the starting point. Her face demonstrated complete concentration and determination. Kakashi couldn't help but notice the faint blue glow surrounding her legs. '_So she's figured it out._' Kakashi mused. '_I'd expect no less form a kunoichi. Since she doesn't have the strength of an average male, she makes up for it with excellent chakara control. But to be able to do so much at such a young age is amazing. She'll probably be a gen-jutsu specialist or a medic-nin. I better remember that._'

Naruto was on his thirty-seventh lap and Sasuke was on his thirty-eighth. Sasuke had been able to settle into the jog faster so he had one lap over Naruto. The blond was aware of this and in desperation, he utilized all his strength for an epic sprint. He had managed to go ahead of and then catch up to Sasuke while he was on the final quarter of the the fortieth lap. They crossed the starting point at the same time and both then collapsed on the floor, panting loudly. There were two loud thuds one after the other as they both fell.

"Good Sasuke, Naruto!" Kakashi called from the tree. "Naruto, you still have another forty laps and Sasuke, I want fifty push-up, fifty sit-ups and fifty pull-ups from you. Naruto and Sakura will do them when they finish their laps. Now get to it!"

Sasuke groaned as he managed to lift himself up and walk towards the clearing beneath Kakashi's tree so he would not be in the way of the jogging. Naruto pulled himself up and stumbled back down after a few steps. He stoop up once more and began jogging at an even, but much slower pace than before. Sakura, who had just finished her thirty-second lap, had been close enough to hear Kakashi's words. She groaned when she thought of doing all those exercises that Sasuke was already starting.

She closed her eyes and her legs kept on moving her forward. Sakura concentrated hard to find that she had already used a little over a quarter of her chakara. She was sad that she had so little chakara in her body. But she hoped that it would be enough to help her through this. As she kept on jogging, she tried using less chakara on her legs to find that, thought it was harder, she could still move around just fine.

Sakura finished when Naruto was half done his other forty. And when Sasuke was half done his other exercises, Naruto had finally finished his laps. He proceeded, without pause, to do ten of each activity before starting again form the first. He repeated this five times until he had finished all fifty. Naruto and Sakura finished at around the same time.

Upon finishing, Kakashi jumped down from the tree that he had been sitting on for the past five hours. "Alright! Good job guys." He said with a cheerful tone. The genin groaned in response, to tired to give a substantial answer. "Well then, you have an hour for lunch before you meet me back here. Bon Appetite." and with those words, Kakashi disappeared in a familiar poof of smoke.

"Lunch already?" Sakura asked to no one in particular. She looked up to the sky to fin the sun in the dead center. Her arm reflectively went up to cover her eyes.

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked in a weak voice as he struggled to stand.

"Yes?" Was all she responded while still looking up at the sky.

Naruto took a deep breath and asked "Are you okay?" He paused. "I mean, what Kakashi-sensei made us do was really hard. I just want to make sure that you didn't strain your body too much."

Sakura looked in his direction. She could see worry in his beautiful blue eyes. Were his eyes always so blue? But Sakura felt touched by his concern for her. "Yes I'm fine. I used chakara to help me move, so it wasn't that hard." She responded with a smile.

"Thought so." Sasuke said as he managed to get up and briefly stare up at the sun.

"Wait." Naruto said. "You mean that if I had used chakara then this would have been easier?"

Sasuke sighed. "I expected that you didn't even know. I didn't use my chakara for this to be more beneficial for my body, but since Sakura has a weaker body – no offense – she needed the extra help."

"But, its not as easy as you think Naruto. If you use too much chakara then you could end up really hurting yourself." Sakura warned. "I'm sort of glad you didn't try it for that reason. You don't have the best chakara control, you know?" She smiled at him.

'_If you did mess up,_' Kyuubi's voice echoed in Naruto's mind '_I'd fix it up so don't worry._'

"Nah." Sasuke said, still looking up at the sky. "I doubt that Naruto would get hurt because of Kyuubi. She's sure to heal him up if something like that were to happen."

Naruto laughed at this. "You know teme, she just said the same thing in different words." He continued laughing.

Sasuke smirked at this. '_Smart friend you have._' Kyuubi said. Naruto just knew that she was grinning.

Sakura was now confused. "Sasuke," She said, pausing for an instant as he turned to look at her. "Why are you talking as if you met it? And the way you put it, its as if she's a good guy, helping Naruto and stuff."

"Hey!" Naruto exclaimed. "Kyuubi isn't an '_it_' she's a '_her_'. And teme did meet her." He finished protectively.

"Really?" Sakura said, shocked.

"Yeah." Sasuke said, his voice returning to its usual calm. "She had to drag me into this idiot's brain to explain to me that Naruto isn't a monster. She's a pretty interesting character."

"Wow..." was all that Sakura could manage to say. There was silence for a few seconds. "Hey! This isn't fair. I'm the only one in the team that hasn't met it– I mean her." She complained.

"Well," Naruto said. "Do you _want_ to meet her?" Sakura hastily nodded in response. "Okay, if you say so. Let me ask her."

'_Kyuubi?_' He said into his mind. His eyes now shut and concentrating.

'_Yeah, yeah. I hear you._' Was her response. '_Get closer to them and calm yourself._'

Naruto opened his brilliant blue eyes and walked towards Sakura. He then took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them, she saw a familiar yellow glow and barred gate. And eerie dripping sound came from behind him and echoed through the vast tunnel. Seconds after, he saw Sasuke and Sakura appear on either side of him. The only sign of their arrival was their feet splashing in the water beneath them.

Sasuke grunted. "I didn't ask to be brought back here."

"Aww, Sasuke that mean!" Kyuubi said as she walked between the bars of the gate to meet with her host and his team. "And I thought you's want to see me again." Sasuke scowled and Kyuubi lightly chuckled.

The woman wearing an orange kimono then turned to look at Sakura. Emerald eyes met crimson red. Sakura was shocked, to say the least. Those deep red eyes sent a wave of fear up her spine. Even though they had a caring expression, that didn't take away from the fact that those slit pupils provoked the most fear that Sakura had ever felt.

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked. She remained silent. "Whats wrong Sakura-chan?" He asked again, now worried about her.

"Calm down kit," Kyuubi said. "She's fine. Its probably just my eyes."

"Your eyes?" Naruto asked. It was true that her eyes were a little creepy, but it was a thousand times scarier when they were on the body of the giant kitsune with claws and fangs the size of Naruto's leg. The form of the orange haired woman in front of Naruto couldn't really cause him to fear her since he had seen her true form.

Sasuke walked towards sakura and stood beside her. He looked at Kyuubi from her angle and straight into her eyes. He instantly remembered his first meeting with Kyuubi. He had also feared those eyes. But after joking around with her, he couldn't really be scared of her. At least, when she wore that calm and rather happy expression.

Another image then entered the Uchiha's mind. It was of his elder brother starring down at him with his mangekyou sharingan. Now that did jolt a bolt of fear into him. But he had already seen those eyes, more times than he could count in his nightmares. So it could be said that he had some sort of preparation to face Kyuubi's terrifying gaze.

Innocent little Sakura really couldn't relate the fear she felt to anything. Her life had been really uneventful in comparison to her two teammates. With that being said, she had never seen anything as scary as Kyuubi's eyes. But she tried to look past that. "I'm... M– my name i– is Sa– Sakura." She said stuttering uncontrollably.

"Yeah, I know." Kyuubi said, closing her eyes then opening them again, her slit pupils were now facing Naruto. "You'd be surprised how much Kit thinks about you." Then she began to laugh.

Naruto's face turned redder than Kyuubi's eyes. Sasuke couldn't help but snort and then break out laughing along side Kyuubi. Kyuubi looked at Naruto again to see his blushing face. This made Kyuubi laugh even harder.

After a few minutes of laughing, Kyuubi took a deep breath. She was in the mood to laugh again, and it was really a great accomplishment to make a cold-hearted Uchiha laugh like that. She wanted to make that happen again, just to see if she could.

"He wouldn't shut up about you after what happened yesterday." She said, and eyebrow raised.

Sakura tried to make sense of what she had said. "Yesterday...?" She said, trying to help her brain remember. Then it hit here! The kiss. She turned an even brighter red than Kyuubi's eyes and looked down to the sewer water in embarrassment.

"Kyuubi!" Naruto shouted loudly. His scream was so loud that it echoed through the tunnel for several seconds after he had said it. His face went past red and changed to a shade of embarrassment that there really was not word to describe.

Sasuke was chuckling loudly and Kyuubi was clutching her stomach from how hard her laughter roared.

Frustration was clear on Naruto's colored face besides the embarrassment. He shut his eyes tight and tried to will him and his friends out of his mind. This proved to work since he fond himself opening his eyes to be back at the training field. Sakura opened her eyes and the blush formed itself on her cheeks once more. Sasuke was the last to wake and she continued lightly chuckling.

To trio began walking towards the city to find somewhere to eat lunch with the time they had left. Obviously, Naruto had instantly recommended Ichiraku's. But Sakura said that they'd only go there if they didn't find somewhere else.

Sasuke decided that he was curious and wanted to know what Kyuubi mentioned that made both Naruto and Sakura blush so strongly. "Hey guys, what happened yesterday that got you both so worked up?"

The strong red immediately returned to both their faces. '_Kit, you might not want to tell him about the kiss..._' Naruto's blush deepened as Kyuubi brought it up as well. He just knew that she was snickering at this. But she continued nonetheless. '_But I do think you should tell Sasuke that Sakura was really upset with the way he reacted._'

The blush vanished as fast as it came when Naruto remembered Sakura's crying form hunched against her bed. "Sasuke," Naruto said to him with a serious tone. Sasuke looked to him and Sakura just lowered her head. "When you ran away from... well, me, both of us got pretty bad. Sakura started crying and I practically blocked off all my emotions. Kyuubi had to work really hard to get me to _wake up. _After that I walked Sakura home and went to look for you. We made up and after that I went to find Sakura, to see if she was okay."

Naruto paused to let Sasuke wrap his mind around this part of the story. Sasuke felt pretty bad about himself. He had really hurt them. In the short time that they were on the same team, they had already managed to make him open up. They were his friends, and he had hurt them– both of them –really badly. "I'm so sorry." He said. Regret obvious in his voice.

This was all because of Itachi. He was so desperate to get his revenge against his brother, that he felt that he needed to live. And he felt that Naruto was a treat to his life, so thats why he ran. Sasuke began to wonder that if he wasn't so dead set on getting his revenge, if he would have stayed and listened to more of the story from Naruto, and save them both all that pain. Even though Sasuke hated to admit it, in this short period of time, he had grown to care for his team.

Naruto saw that Sasuke was thinking deeply on this. '_Kit! This is great, he's re-thinking some of his goals! Remember when he told his goal to Kakashi, he said that he wanted to kill someone. I'd bet five of my nine tails that it is some sort of revenge. This here is probably making him doubt if that goal is the right path because he was scared for his life when he learned of me. He needs his life for revenge. Understand?_' Kyuubi's logic couldn't have made more sense.

Naruto responded a quick '_Yes_.' to her before continuing with his story. "I found Sakura crying in her room. I jumped through the window and managed to comfort her, and I couldn't be happier that she stopped crying. That moment there was what Kyuubi was talking about." Now there was only a hint of red on his cheek. Sakura looked up and her own blush began to slowly fade away.

Sasuke had now finished thinking about his life and focused more on the last part of Naruto's story. Kyuubi had mentioned _yesterday._ If it was really just the comforting that she had meant, then the two of them wouldn't have turned so red. He tried to think back on the exact words that Naruto had just said. '_...crying in her room..._' Her room? That means that he went into her room to comfort her. Suddenly and idea of what could have happened erupted in Sasuke's brain.

While Sasuke was deep in thought, Naruto had managed to convince Sakura to let them eat at Ichiraku's. They walked towards them with Sasuke a few feet behind them, following. Though his expression looked somewhat dazed and out of this world, they didn't pay much mind to it, thinking that he was looking at his mistakes and re-thinking his life... all that stuff.

The trio was now in front of the ramen stand, almost inside when Sasuke shouted "You didn't!" with an expression of utter shock on his face.

"Didn't what?" Sakura asked.

Sasuke approached them and when his face was up close with their, he whispered "When you were in Sakura's room, you didn't do it, did you?"

"It?" Naruto asked. He and Sakura began to think on it.

"What?" Naruto shout out of the top of his lungs, loud enough for the whole village to hear.

"No!" Sakura shouted at the exact same time.

Sasuke had to jump back since his face had been right up close to theirs when they had their outburst.

"We only kissed!" Sakura hissed at him.

It took a few seconds for Naruto and Sakura to process what she had just said. Sasuke blinked a few times and then grinned at them. The deep red appeared on the two's face once again. They seemed to be doing that a lot. In Naruto's head, Kyuubi's voice could be hear in a roar of laughter. Any more of that and Naruto would end up with a head ache.

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><p><strong>Don't forget to review! I love reviews and it makes me write faster! =D It always brings a smile to my face when i see that a new review has been added.<strong>


	7. Progress

**Yeah, I know I haven't updated this story in forever. But to be honest I read a LOT of GREAT Naruto fics and mine seemed really stupid in comparison... But I read through the chapters I had written from this story and though the plot was sort of empty, it still really kept me entertained. And I felt that I wanted to read more. But for that I had to write more. And after reading so much Naruto, I feel that I can write battles a little better than I could when I started this fic. And it was fun too. As for the romance side of the story, well I think that I can come up with something decent. I'm not a big a fan of NaruSaku as I used to be, but meh... I still like them. And also, I'M CAUGHT UP WITH THE NARUTO MANGA! YAYZ =w=  
>Spoiler for this chappie: Kyuubi's name.<strong>

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><p>Squad Seven enjoyed their lunch at Ichiraku's in silence. Sakura and Naruto were way too embarrassed that they had admitted that they had kissed to their teammate to say anything. Sasuke had a smirk splattered on his face the whole time while he ate his ramen. His assumption might have been wrong, but it got the correct answer out of them anyway.<p>

Their hands felt heavy because each had twenty-five pounds added to their weight. Using chop sticks proved to be very difficult. Sakura had given up trying to use her own strength and had resorted to using chakra again. But it was a significant amount less than when she had originally started. Naruto and Sasuke were struggling greatly, but they didn't let it show at all.

Soon, the meal had ended and the trio returned to Training Ground Eleven. Kakashi was yet to be spotted, so they just took a seat on the grass. Naruto slouched his back and finally let it show on his face that he was having a hard time with the extra weight added to his body. Sasuke still remained stoic to his troubles, but the sweat on his forehead proved that he had it just as hard as the others. Sakura didn't even try to hide the fact that this was really hard on her.

After a few minutes of waiting, a poof of smoke appeared in front of the three revealing their sensei reading that same book. "Well, now that we've all had something to eat, why don't we start on some of those missions I just picked up." He said, voice asa calm as ever.

Naruto's interest sparked at the word _mission_. He stood up quickly and was soon followed by his team. "Alright then! Now we get shaking!" The blond stated loudly.

Kakashi smiled at this and proceeded to explain that their first task was to walk a few dogs. Their expressions visibly dropped at the sound of that, but they complied anyway. Walking the dogs proved to be a much harder task than expected because of the weights that they had on them.

Sasuke had also resorted, like Sakura, to use his chakra to help him out. It was a lot easier for him to do the task with the aid of his chakra. But he knew that his reserve wasn't endless so the Uchiha had to compromise between his own physical strength and the power of his chakra.

Sakura knew that her own chakra reserves were almost completely used up, so she had to regrettably use a lot less of it of it to last her the day. This caused her to have to use her own strength a lot more, but it wasn't completely unbearable. But the fact that it was difficult still remained.

Naruto on the other hand was completely helpless. He had no idea that chakra could be used like that. And even if he did, he had no idea _how_. His chakra control was close to nonexistent and even though he had an unnaturally large amount of chakra, he had no idea how to use it other than for his clone and sexy jutsu.

The blond noticed that he was struggling a lot more than the rest of his team with this. It didn't help that he had picked the largest dog to walk, but it was weird that they had so much ease with it. Kyuubi had been listening to his mental speculation and was now lightly laughing. Naruto was slightly annoyed at her, but decided that figuring out what they were doing was a lot more important.

"Hey Sakura-chan?" He called.

This surprised Sakura and caused her to break her concentration on her chakra. She managed to quickly compose herself as soon as she answered. "Yes?" to him.

"How can you do this so easily. Aren't the weights bothering you?" Naruto asked. But he didn't fail to notice that as soon as he called her name it was greatly more visible that she was under strain.

"Well, I'm using my chakra to help my muscles. Makes the weights seem lighter." she replied to him.

"Chakra?" Naruto asked again. He remembered that after their first run she said that she made it easier on herself by using chakra. He didn't think about it too much because he was just glad it didn't hurt her too much. But now that he thought about it, what was chakra?

Sakura saw his confused expression. She sighed loudly. "Naruto! Didn't you pay any attention in the academy?"

The blond in question placed his arm behind his head– with difficulty –and laughed while shaking his head. "I guess I didn't." He said.

Kakashi looked up from his book to listen to the exchange between his two students. He couldn't help but sigh when he heard Naruto's comment on how he didn't learn close to anything in the academy.

Sakura rolled her eyes. It wasn't a secret that Naruto skipped almost half of the classes and slept through the other half. The only time he was know to be present and awake in the academy was during taijutsu training where he fought Sasuke.

"To put it simply, chakra is the energy we use to do jutsu." She said. She waited for Naruto to nod to make sure that she was following him. "We move the chakra through path ways that are in out bodies. You know, like how blood moved through our veins."

"So thats the blue stuff I always see when I try to do the clone jutsu?" Naruto exclaimed.

"Well, yeah. But you can only see it because you use too much." Sakura continued. She knew for a fact that chakra wasn't meant to be seen when preforming a jutsu of the sort.

Naruto's expression brightened without warning. "That means that I got lots of it, don't I?" He said happily.

The pink haired girl wasn't sure how to answer him. She knew that he had more than she did, but she didn't know if that was considered to be 'a lot' or not.

The book reading jounin noticed his female student's trouble in answering the question, so he picked now to help her out. "Thats right Naruto. You have more chakra than the average shinobi." He said in his bored voice. Naruto jumped for joy at the sound of these words. "But all that chakra is completely useless if you don't know how to use it." Kakashi finished.

Naruto's mood dropped in an instant. "Well then how do I learn to control it?" He asked.

Kakashi sighed. "Its a slow process that you were supposed to have started back when you started the academy. Sasuke and Sakura followed the program that the academy has for them to have quite good control of their chakra at this point. But you haven't Naruto."

Naruto sat cross-legged on the floor with his hand to his chin. He was looking intently upwards, deep in thought on how he could control this chakra thing. Up until now he just did the jutsu and it happened. He ignored the pulling of the leash in his left hand as the large dog attempted to walk into a mine field. Since Naruto was wearing weights, the animal was unable to move him from his spot on the ground.

'_Kyuubi?_' Naruto asked into his mind.

'_You know, its getting really annoying that you call me that.'_ She responded. '_Just call me Kurama, thats my name._ _Anyway, what do you want?'_

Naruto made a mental note to remember to call her Kurama from now on before he continued. '_Do you think you can help me learn to control my chakra better?_'

Kurama remained in silence for a moment. Naruto assumed that she was thinking on how to help him. '_Well, you learn better by doing rather than listening to the theory behind it. So why don't I try pumping some of my chakra into your limbs and you can try to replicate that._' She suggested.

'_Its worth a shot._' The blond responded.

He stood up straight, slightly trembling form the weight before he steadied himself. Kakashi watched intently. Sakura and Sasuke had gone back to walking their dogs. The dog that Naruto was supposed to walk had given up on trying to drag Naruto around so he just sat down on the grass with his tongue hanging out of his mouth.

Naruto felt a sort of warm yet eerie energy slowly creeping from his stomach and moving into his limbs by some sort of pathways. He could feel the energy moving though the pathways as if it were water. But the energy felt too powerful, too demonic and foreign to him.

The power was so much. He felt as if he could do anything. He grasped the power for himself and was able to command and push it through the pathways into his fists. The weight on his arms immediately vanished. He felt as light as a feather. A smirk formed its was to his face as he indulged in the power he felt.

Kakashi continued to watch his blond student as he stood. Then he felt it, the chakra of the Kyuubi. It felt as deadly and menacing as it had thirteen years ago. The silver haired man was scared. Should the Kyuubi escape, he had no way in stopping it. It would wreck havoc on their village once again.

But the jounin managed to keep his calm and continue to inspect this chakra. It was the Kyuubi's alright. But now that he felt it better, it was deluded quite a lot. He was standing only a few feet away from the source and yet he didn't feel the same magnitude of fear that he had felt all those years ago. He knew that it wasn't because he had grown stronger since then. He could feel Naruto's chakra mixed within the Kyuubi's chakra. The jounin chose to simply watch.

He looked at his student and say him almost glowing red, but you could barely see it. His whisker marks were darker. Kakashi squinted his one eye and was able to see the tips of canine-like fangs under Naruto's upper lip. That, mixed in with the bloodlust of the Kyuubi's chakra was downright frightening. Though the jounin felt comfort in seeing that Naruto's eyes were still a glistening cerulean color. Though they appeared to be distracted, they were still the same shade as the eyes of his sensei. This was still Naruto.

The power was so much! Naruto could do anything with this power! There would be nothing to stand in his way. But then he stopped to think. He allowed the energy to continue to flow through the pathways. The warmth that had originally radiated of them grew warmer. So much so until it burned. Naruto realized that this power was corrupting him. Not only that, it was killing him from the inside.

He shut his eyes tight and was greeted with red. All he saw was red. The same shade of red that Kurama's eyes were. The heat became unbearable and Naruto tried to push it away. He pushed it all back to the core of his stomach where he had felt it come from. Now all he saw was blue. A light blue. It wasn't warm. Nor was it cool. It felt the same way that Sakura's arms felt around him.

It felt safe. The only way to describe it would be safe. Curious as to what this was, Naruto tried to move it along, just as he had done with the red. He pushed it along the same pathways. The burning that he had felt began to heal until it was there no more. The safety that he felt with this blue remained. It only increased the feeling of him being protected the more he moved it.

Kurama carefully observed as her host grew infatuated with her power. She was disappointed in him. She knew that her power was addicting. That's why she was the only one who was ever meant to have it. The distaste she felt towards her Jinjuriki only increased as he took control of the small portion of chakra she had given him.

Yet she allowed him to go on. But when her chakra coils were burning just as much as his's were, she knew it was time to intervene. However, Kurama was surprised to find that Naruto had done that on his own. He pushed her chakra back to her and managed to find his own.

Kakashi was shocked when he suddenly felt the Kyuubi's chakra disappear and be replaced with Naruto's chakra, now stronger than ever. After the shock passed, he felt a huge relief. The Kyuubi was still secure within the Yondaime's seal.

Naruto then opened his bright blue eyes to smile widely at the silver haired jounin. "I did it Kakashi-sensei!" He bellowed. "I got control of my chakra!"

Kakashi nodded and his visible eye crinkled in a smile. "You sure did. Now get back to the mission." He said.

Naruto nodded hastily as he pumped his chakra into his arms only to realize one thing. This chakra business. He had been doing it the whole time! Every time he jumped from branch to branch in trees or when he jumped across buildings, every time he used chakra to jump higher!

He tried to jump, lowly so to not lift the dog into the air, and found that his almost reflexively sent chakra through the pathways and into his feet to propel himself. But in comparison to the amount to chakra he was swirling around his arms, that amount of the blue energy was nothing.

The blond tried to make a shadow clone to see what his chakra did. As he made the seal, he felt a concentrated amount of chakra ooze out from his hands into the spot where he had wanted to create the clone before it appeared in a poof of smoke.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow towards Naruto, wondering what the blond was doing now. But then he decided that it was best to leave him alone. He had to figure this out on his own. Therefore the jounin returned to his orange book.

Naruto dispelled the clone and felt the chakra return to him. But it felt so natural that he barely noticed it. The only reason his did notice it was because he was paying attention to it. So he had been using chakra his whole life, but he hadn't noticed it.

'_It means that you're a natural at being a shinobi._' Kurama said. '_You see some people have trouble becoming a shinobi because they either don't have enough chakra or they have too much trouble using , even though your control is terrible, are a natural. Using your charka is the same as walking to you. Now start using it and get back to the mission!'_ She ordered.

Naruto stood there for a second, unmoving. If he was a natural, it was a good thing! All he had to do was train hard to be able to control his chakra and then he'd be Hokage in no time! So he pumped his chakra into his arms and legs and began coaxing the dog to get walking again.

The giant dog was quick to comply as it stood and began trotting in the direction where it smelled the other dogs. Naruto jogged along side him, feeling no weight from his limbs at all. He rejoined Sasuke and Sakura and told them all about his newest revelation and how Kurama helped him out. He also mentioned how she wanted to be called Kurama instead of Kyuubi from now on.

To be honest, Sakura and Sasuke weren't that interested in hearing how the blond had finally managed to do something that they had learned when they were six. Sakura had to resist the urge to slap her own forehead when she heard him tell about his epiphany on how he had been using chakra all along. Sasuke simply shook his head at the hyperactive blond.

Soon after Naruto was done explaining, they were joined by Kakashi. "Okay team," he said. "I think its about time we head back." So the team walked back into town to return the dogs and receive their pay. They couldn't help but admire the sunset as they walked down the main street in Konoha. It was simply breathtaking.

After returning the dogs, Sasuke and Sakura each went to their homes. And before Naruto could do the same, he was stopped by Kakashi. "You know," He said "If you use that much chakra on your arms and legs, the weights would be sort of pointless."

"Well whats the point of even having physical strength if we can use chakra?" The blond asked.

Kakashi shook his head. "Chakra is meant to be used for preforming jutsu or in situations where you really need a speed or strength boost. You need to save up your chakra for that. So I don't want you using your chakra to help you with the weights. I know that you can handle it Naruto because even though you're on the skinny side, you are naturally strong."

Naruto looked to the ground in shame. He thought he was almighty with his newly found control over his chakra. But Kakashi was right. Think of how many clones he could make with all his chakra! But if he used it all up before, then he'd be left with nothing.

He decided that he wouldn't use his chakra unless he really had to! So he stopped the flow of the comforting blue energy that was flowing through his arms and legs. The weight took an immediate effect on him. His back hunched over from the weight. Naruto had to force himself to stand up straight again.

"Well then, don't forget to be at the training grounds tomorrow. Its a Sunday so we'll only be training in the morning." And with those words Kakashi poofed away.

Naruto awoke the next morning with new determination. He had taken a shower with the weight, eaten dinner with the weights and even slept with the weights. And when he stood up off his bed, they were still as much of a pain in the neck.

The blond rushed through his morning activities and then happily jogged to the training grounds. Regrettably, he arrived late, _again._ Kurama was laughing in the back of his head but he chose to ignore her.

"Alright guys, forty laps around the grounds, just like yesterdays. Sorry Naruto but you have to do eighty again. Oh, and try not to use chakra, even you Sakura, you have to build your strength." Said Kakashi, orange book in hand.

All three genin groaned but began to steadily jog. Sasuke and Sakura found it a lot easier to run on this bright morning than it had been the past morning. Though Sakura still kept a steady and somewhat slow pace, Sasuke wasted no time in smirking and then speeding past her.

The Uchiha then ran passed Naruto and the blond reflexively ran after him and the race was on. The two boys ended at a deadlock. Naruto claimed that he won, and Sasuke claimed that he had been the victor. They almost began to brawl it out before Kakashi stopped then and firmly stated that they had arrived at the same time.

The rest of the run and further exercises went without incident. Squad Seven took a considerable less amount of time to conclude the drills than they had the previous day.

Kakashi hopped down from his tree and stood before the three. "Alright guys, we have some time before lunch so I wanted you guys to work on your teamwork." Said the silver haired man. "We're going to fight, you three against me. You can use all your jutsu and any weapons you have. Just try to work together."

Kakashi still stood in front of them, unmoving. His book was still in his hand and the gaze of his one eye was directed at it. Naruto didn't want to wait any longer, though he had only waited around five seconds, and charged at his sensei. He aimed to punch the older man's face but he simply ducked.

The blond landed on his feet and tried a low kick but Kakashi jumped.

"Naruto! Jump up high!" Screamed Sakura. Naruto did as he was told and Sakura threw three shuriken at Kakashi.

Kakashi took a step to the left, narrowly, yet confidently, avoiding the attack. Naruto more towards the right and was facing his sensei again. He created a single clone and grabbed a kunai knife from his pouch. The clone did the same and they charged.

Kakashi first popped the clone by quickly punching it in the face with the hand that wasn't holding his book. He then dodged a seemingly powerful punch from the original Naruto by jumping backwards.

What the jounin didn't expect was to hear a loud "Katon: Gokakyuu no Justu! (Fire style: Great fireball technique)" coming from behind him.

A giant ball of fire hit where Kakashi had landed but when the flames cleared there was only a burnt up log in the center. Kakashi had though fast and preformed a Kawarimi (Substitution) to get out of the way.

The fight continued as so. Naruto was the one who kept engaging Kakashi head on and serving mostly as a distraction. Though he did end up landing a few good blows with his clones. Kurama chose again not to aid Naruto as this was simply training.

Sasuke also fought with a little taijutsu but he tried mostly to catch his opponent off guard. The Uchiha also worked with midrange attacks by his fire attack and by throwing weapons. Sakura was mostly backup. She set up a few traps which Kakashi triggered and has to use Kawarimi to get himself out of it.

All in all they weren't half bad. Kakashi liked what he saw. They still weren't a match for him. And he knew that Sakura only knew the academy things. Naruto was only good for brute force and his clones. And Sasuke only had his one good jutsu going for him. They all had a lot to learn but the silver haired jounin knew that they ad potential and chemistry as a team.

The weights seemed close to insignificant while they were in the heat of battle. At least for Sasuke and Naruto they did. For Sakura it was still slightly difficult. But when her focus was on setting a trap, they didn't bother her much.

The team was dismissed after an hour of fighting. They didn't land more than a few punches and a single kick from Sasuke on their sensei, but they were still overall happy with the day's training. Since it was Sunday they didn't have to go back to do any missions and the chose to each go their separate ways for lunch.


	8. Routine

**Everyone cheer! I have updated! Hurrayz!  
>Yea... the reason why I don't update this story much isn't writers block. It isn't time. Nope. I have plenty of ideas. But I get lazy. I wanna finish reading a fic before I write my own. But I've read SO many awesome Naruto fics that WOW. Mine just seems to suck.<br>Quick question: Do you guys want me to get Sakura and Naruto together sooner or later? Like put the plot development first or put the romance first? Answer please! I wanna know!  
>I have the next part planned out perfectly! You guys are gonna love it ;D<strong>

* * *

><p>Sakura decided to go back to her home for lunch. She was greeted by her mother who had already prepared a small lunch for herself, but being the good mother that she was she let Sakura eat it and made herself something different instead. Of course she didn't let Sakura know that she had prepared the lunch for herself or she wouldn't have accepted it with a smile.<p>

After eating, the pink haired kunoichi decided to go to the library. She found that being alone in her home was too unproductive. As she walked to the library, she couldn't help but think of her team. Once you got used to it, Kakashi didn't seem to be _that_ bad. He was still a pain for putting on the weights and not teaching them how to take them off, but it was all for training.

Thinking of the weights made them suddenly feel a lot heavier on her. Sakura tried to make herself not think about them but it just made it worse. The pinkette resorted on thinking of other things. Like how Sasuke was acting totally different. Well, not completely. He still grunted more than he spoke. And his competitive nature seemed to be only worse as he went toe to toe with Naruto. But he was smirking a lot more. Not quite smiling, but smirking was a lot better than scowling.

And he did laugh a lot while talking to Kyuubi... Or Kurama was it? She remembered that the previous day Naruto had asked both her and Sasuke to call the nine-tails Kurama because she had said that that was her name. It would take some getting used to, but Sakura was sure she'd get it right.

Upon arriving at the library that she had made her way to, she robotically entered and made her way to the section she usually got books from. She halted her train of thought and looked at the books in front of her. Reading the backs of the books to see if she found anything interesting, she realized that this wasn't what she really wanted to read right now.

She was in the magazine section. This was where she usually went for beauty tips and things on how to impress boys. Sakura blinked a few times before turning around and heading to another part of the library. Why did she automatically go there? Did she really go to that section _that_ often? How much time did she really waste of her life on trying to impress Sasuke?

Sakura frantically shook her head and stared at the floor for a while. Then she looked forward with a new determination in her eyes. She marched past the magazine section. Then came the romantic novels section, the science fiction section, the historic section, the kid's books section, the science section, the section on different languages, and then finally the section that contained things on being a shinobi.

Obviously the public library didn't have complicated jutsu scrolls or things about the different clans or kekkei genkai. Those were in a completely different library that stood right next to the Hokage Tower. But there were a few books that contained the basic information. Like things that taught the difference between tai, gen and ninjutsu. And the basics of chakra... all sorts of things.

The pinkette entered the isle. The books were mostly thick ones, probably well over three-hundred pages long. Quickly, she scanned over the titled that were labeled on the spine until she found one that could be useful to her.

Her interest spiked when she read the title "Paths for a Kunoichi" written in golden on a dark wine colored book. This interested her because Sakura was well aware that she nothing close to the amount of physical strength that most male shinobi had. And also women had much less stamina. So was it common for kunoichi to do something different? She didn't think so but maybe she was wrong.

Sakura took the book and went to sit on one of the many tables in the library. She opened the book and skipped over the pages that contained the acknowledgements as well as the table of contents and went straight to the introduction. It was rather short so Sakura thought it best to read through it thoroughly.

"_A kunoichi, or a female shinobi, isn't as physically apt to preforming the same strength-based tasks as a male shinobi could. The female frame is by average more petit and weaker than a male. Also, women tend to have a lesser stamina. Therefore kunoichi often don't choose the same paths in their careers as men._

_However, being a woman also has its advantages in the shinobi world. Kunoichi seems to be much more capable at controlling their chakra than men. Though they typically have less chakra, their control is far superior. This allows kunoichi to preform tasks that male shinobi wouldn't be able to do._

_One thing that kunoichi are more suited for is stealth. Their small forms and more flexibility allow for more precise movements and makes it easier for the body to be hidden. The superior chakra control permits them to be able to mask their presence. _

_Another thing that female shinobi excel at is genjutsu. The chakra control and low chakra reserves make genjutsu an alternative for the more draining tai and ninjutsu. Though for this reason on a squad, a genjutsu specialist is usually considered the backup and are not often placed on the front lines. _

_The third and probably most important possibility for a kunoichi is medical ninjutsu. Some parts of it is quite draining chakra wise, but the precision needed to preform it requires impeccable chakra control. Not many can become successful medics, but it is s highly revered practice._

_Each kunoichi is different in strengths and some fields suit them better than others. Finding what they are best at only depends on them."_

Sakura read through that same page a few times. Of course she had known from an early age that boys were naturally stronger than girls. Just like her dad was taller than her mum, boys were just better at physical things. But she had no idea that girls had better chakra control. The flexibility she knew.

Knowing that she was good for something made Sakura really happy. She read over the page once more and made a mental list of a few things that she could become. The pinkette was positive that she wasn't one of the few exceptions to the rule and had great strength. So that left being stealthy, being a genjutsu specialist, or being a medic.

She looked back on what she had been taught in the academy on those things. Regarding stealth, all that they had been taught was how to quiet your breaths and how to pick a decent hiding spot. Sakura was simply average at that. She had never tried using her flexibility for anything other than in a taijutsu spar.

Sakura sighed before pondering over her next option. The second option was being a genjutsu specialist. She thought back to the exercise that they had done that day. She was basically the back line supporter when they were fighting against Kakashi. But when she looked back to what she had been taught in the academy, she found that the only thing she knew was what genjutsu basically was, how to detect it and how to dispel it. She didn't know any herself.

The last option was becoming a medic-nin. This slightly sparked her interest more than the other two options because she knew that there weren't many medic-nin around. And she had soaked up the basic first-aid things they taught in the academy like a sponge.

The pinkette kunoichi decided that she would ask Kakashi on the subject the next day. Maybe he knew some of the ninjutsu and could teacher her! Being a medic would definitely benefit the team. And that Ino-pig wouldn't have a chance against her after that!

Sakura smirked to herself then got up to put the book back. A look out the window told her that it was now dusk and that she should be heading back home. So she did just that.

At the same time, Sasuke was walking back to his apartment from a random training ground that he had found empty. He had spent the whole afternoon learning a new fire jutsu from a scroll that had been left in the Uchiha Compound. A few years ago he had collected all the jutsu scrolls and weapons he had found from the various storage closets and shacks.

He kept most of the weapons sealed away in sealing scrolls, but the jutsu scrolls were all on a shelf in his apartment and were read regularly. Most were too complicated for him to learn. So he only read over them to make sure that he still couldn't learn them.

But that day after lunch he had read over one, Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu (Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique), and found that he might actually be able to do it. So he went out to try it. And sure enough, after a few dozen tries, he managed to get it. He had yet to master it, but it was better than nothing. So, the Uchiha prodigy walked back to his apartment with a satisfied smirk on his face.

Meanwhile, Naruto was happily sitting at Ichiraku's where he had just been at lunch time. Yet he had returned of his dinner. But that was only to be expected as he had no intention to cook for himself and he'd rather have Ichiraku's than a bowl of instant ramen.

He thought back to the activities of the day as he slurped through his third bowl of the delicious noodles. After his lunch at the very same ramen stand where he was now, he really had no clue on what he was going to do for the day. He thought about paying ol' Hokage-jiji a visit but he didn't have very much to tell him.

It really didn't cross his mind to tell him anything about Kurama, so he continued thinking on his next activity while walking. The idea of visiting his old sensei Iruka dawned on his mind but he really didn't have much to say to him either. Sure he could tell him about his mission and how his training with Kakashi was, but the want to tell him that wasn't superior to the feeling of not wanting to go back to the Academy so soon after leaving it.

So the blond continued to walk the streets of Konoha with no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his day. Suddenly, a little voice in the back of his head began to speak to him! It called his name and presented him with an idea... Literally.

'_Hey kit, I've got an idea.' _Spoke the voice of Kurama. '_How about I teach you something new?_'

Naruto's eyes grew bright and a large smile graced his face. '_Will you really?_' He shouted into his mind.

The fox chuckled at his reaction. It was as if she were giving chocolate to a baby. '_Sure kit. Just get your ass to a training field and we'll see what I can teach you._' She responded.

He ran as fast as he could to the nearest training field he knew of. All that was seen was an orange and yellow blur dashing through the street. A few people, upon seeing the blur, braced themselves for a catastrophic prank. But they were relieved to find no such thing and continued on with whatever it what that they were doing.

He arrived at the empty training field he usually used to train on his own and patiently waited for Kurama to decide on what to teach him. It took a few minuted for her to make up her mind but when she did...

Naruto cringed as he remembered the next part. He was now on his seventh bowl of ramen and he really didn't feel like reliving the next part of his day so he just decided to focus on his ramen. Another two bowls later, he payed his bill and went on home for some much needed rest.

The next day arrived quick and Sasuke and Sakura were both waiting in the Training ground eleven for their sensei to arrive. After a poof of smoke, he was there. And only around three seconds after did Naruto come running in.

"Sensei! Please don't make me run more laps!" He shouted hysterically.

Kakashi gave him a single eyes smile before saying "I'm sorry Naruto, but there is no excuse for being late."

Sasuke scoffed in response to that, but he did acknowledge that Kakashi hadn't been late for now three of the five days that they had known him. But the first two days hadn't given him a good impression.

"Right, so today you will be doing fifty laps, seeing as all three of you are far more used to the weight." The jounin said.

Sasuke and Naruto began running without a word. Kakashi made the hand seal to shunshin away but a word from Sakura halted him. "Sensei! Before you go to your reading, may I ask you a question?" She said politely. She was polite mostly because she didn't know what he was reading though...

"Sure thing Sakura, that's why I'm here." Responded the jounin.

"Well, I was reading a book yesterday. And it said that kunoichi aren't as physically strong as male shinobi. But it also said that they have better chakra control." She paused for a second to take a breath.

"That certainly is true." Kakashi said.

"And the book also said that they were more suited to become medics. So I was wondering if you could teach me some medical nin-jutsu..." The pinkette finished.

Kakashi paused for a second before answering. "Well, I knew from the day before yesterday, when you used chakra to help you with the weights, that you have exception control, even for a kunoichi. So I knew you'd be a good medic or genjutsu user. For you to realize this yourself proves that you are as smart as your Academy results show you are."

He was saying all this with his usual bored and detached tone, but it still made Sakura smile happily. She was being praised after all.

"However..." This word made her frown slightly, but she continued to attentively listen to her sensei's words. "I'm not skilled at all in medical ninjutsu you see. So the most I can do is get you a detailed scroll on the basics and perhaps on the intermediate and a few techniques but not much more than that. If it were genjutsu I could help a lot more. But the only hand's on I can help you with is your chakra control." The masked man said honestly.

"Well thats already enough sensei. I'm not really sure if I'm suited for medical ninjutsu. So if it doesn't work out you can teach me some genjutsu." Sakura said, now smiling again. "I'm probably going to be the one on the back lines of the team anyway so both would be fine. Thanks sensei."

The pinkette the ran off and began on her laps, seeing as her two teammates had already run passed her once and almost a second time.

The rest of the morning exercises went by. The three genin took around the same amount of time than they had the previous day. Naruto had to run a total of nighty laps while his other two teammates had to do fifty. The push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups were also fifty each but the genin found it much easier than the previous day.

Since Kakashi apparently had no desire to spar with the trio, he gave them a D-rank mission for them to complete before being dismissed for lunch. The mission was simple, they had to re-paint a fence. They did so reluctantly but got the job done.

Kakashi, Sakura and Sasuke all had a headache when lunch arrived. It wasn't unbearable, but the fact that Naruto continued to scream didn't help at all. Their headache came to be because of his complained regarding the fence painting. And now his screams had something to do with ramen or whatever.

Kakashi was quick to tell them to meet him at their training grounds in an hour before his used the shunshin to poof away. That left Sasuke and Sakura to deal with their loudmouth teammate. It was only two minutes after Kakashi left that Sakura lost her temper and hit his teammate upside the head with her fist. The fact that her fist weighed twenty-five more pounds than usual only helped her inflict the pain.

'_That shut him up._' thought Sasuke with a smirk.

The pink haired kunoichi sighed in frustration before saying "Don't you ever shut up?" angrily at Naruto.

"Sorry Sakura-chan." Naruto replied in a whisper.

'_You really should try to talk a little less loudly._' Kurama said to him.

"I'll try to talk more quietly." The blond Jinjuriki said to both Kurama and Sakura.

Squad Seven ended up going to a dango shop for lunch. Kurama managed to talk Naruto out of complaining to spare his teammates of an even greater headache.

The conversation they had over lunch was mostly over what menial chore Kakashi would have them do next. The conversation was mostly between Naruto and Sakura but Sasuke was listening and giving his own input but grunting at the possible chores and scoffing at the ones he thought to be improbable. It wasn't much but it was enough for the blond and the pinkette to get his opinion about it.

After lunch Squad Seven managed to complete another three D-ranks before calling it a day at sunset. Once they finished the last of them, Kakashi took them to the Hokage Tower to give his mission reports and to collect the payment.

The next day arrived and by six forty, Sasuke and Sakura could already be found at the training grounds. Seven o'clock came and Naruto came running into the area. "I'm... not... _late_!" He screamed in between gasps for air.

Sakura sighed. "You should set your alarm earlier if you always end up getting here late, even if Kakashi-sensei isn't here yet." She scolded.

'_She's right you know._' Kurama added.

"Fine, I'll do that tonight." Naruto said, still trying to catch his breath slightly.

"Just don't forget, alright?" the pinkette warned. She relieved a goofy grin in response to her and she couldn't help but crack a small smile in response.

The kunoichi was pleased to find that Naruto had been utilizing the clothes that she had bought for him. Today he was wearing some white shorts with a blue T-shirt that had the konoha symbol in orange on its front. She was surprised to see that he didn't have his shuriken pouch or his kunai holster with him though. So she asked him why.

"Oh, that? Its just that Kurama said that I should leave them at home since we're only going to be doing chores." Naruto said while scratching the back of his head. "I don't have many kunai or shuriken so its best to take care of the ones I have."

They waited for Kakashi another ten minutes before Sasuke stood up from where he was seated at the base of a tree. Naruto shot him a confused glance. "Doesn't seem like Kakashi is going to get here anytime soon. I don't want to waste time so I'm going to start running." The Uchiha responded to Naruto's unspoken question.

"Great idea teme!" Naruto exclaimed before standing and beginning to run around the grounds with Sasuke hot on his trail.

Sakura rolled her eyes at the boys's competition before she too stood and began to run. She tried to use as little chakra as she could, and was pleased to see that she didn't need to use much. But she had read that the more that one uses chakra, the more one can make. So she still circulated a small amount of chakra through her limbs, just so she could build up better reserves.

Sasuke and Naruto finished their fifty laps in almost three fourths of the time that it took them the previous day. Sakura noticed that it was their rivalry that made them improve so much. She laughed a little as she saw the two arguing over who crossed the line first.

Naruto paused his rant for a second before beginning to whine. "But Kurama! I got there first!" a second of silence. "Fine, you win teme!" Now his voice was directed as Sasuke, who smirked. "But I'll surely beat you at push-ups!" The blond said with determination.

Sakura was only half done her laps while the boys were racing away with the other exercises. Upon finishing her fiftieth lap, she found Naruto and Sasuke bickering over who finished the pull-ups first.

"Dobe, theres no way you could of beaten me." Sasuke said. "You are the dead-last after all." a smirk formed on his face.

Naruto was outraged. "I am not!" He shouted, waving his arms frantically in the air. "And I totally finished first, teme!"

"Dobe."

"Teme!"

"Dobe." This time Sasuke actually glared at him.

"Teme!" Naruto was fuming.

"Alright, alright. Break it up already." Was the voice of Sakura. She glared at the two boys menacingly with her fist in front of her, ready to strike.

Naruto and Sasuke audibly gulped, both slightly scared of their female teammate. Naruto had already felt her wrath and had no interest in facing it again. As for Sasuke, well there was no way that he'd fight back against a girl. His pride as a man wouldn't allow him to. But he had seen how back she hurt Naruto and despite what he said about the dobe, he knew that he had a strong skull.

Sakura showed her own slightly evil, yet satisfied smirk at the reaction of her two teammates. "The answer to this is simple." She said in a calm and low voice. "Just ask Kurama who finished first and end this pointless argument."

"Kurama?" Naruto said aloud, simply to make the fox answer the question that he was sure that she had heard.

Sasuke and Sakura waited in silence as their teammate received their response. It only took a few seconds for Naruto to nod and say "She said that we tied."

Sasuke grunted and turned to begin his sit-ups while Naruto smiled at Sakura. She smiled back at him and began doing her own exercises. Sadly she had to use a lot more chakra to do the push-ups and pull-ups than she did for the running, but the sit-ups took no chakra at all from her part.

As soon as Sakura finished her sit-ups, she looked for her teammates to find them sparing. They were only using taijutsu but she could tell that it was really impressive. It was clear to her that Sasuke was wining, but it was a close call.

"I need to get stronger!" the Uchiha suddenly called. "Naruto! Use a clone to fight me!" Naruto stopped mid-punch to look at him questioningly. "Just do it. And if I dispel it create another to replace it."

Naruto shrugged but nodded. He couldn't help but grin and he formed his favorite hand-seal but crossing his middle and index fingers in front of his face and loudly shouting "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" (Shadow Clone Jutsu) immediately after a cloud of smoke appeared beside Naruto revealing an exact replica of him.

Naruto and his clone both charged to attack Sasuke. The fight was a lot more even now and Sakura couldn't see if either had the upper hand. That is, until Sasuke managed to dispel the clown by hitting it with a roundhouse kick. Naruto struggled to get an opportunity to replace that single clone but during the whole right he was grinning, simply because it was fun.

After another half hour of Naruto and Sasuke sparing, Kakashi poofed into existence beside Sakura. His only greeting towards his students was a simple "Yo!"

Naruto and Sasuke's fight was halted as they turned to face their sensei. "You're late!" Naruto, his clone and Sakura called.

"Well you see, there was this old lady buying groceries and the bags seemed so heavy so I naturally had to help her carry them back to her house." Kakashi attempted to explain.

"Liar!" The same three voices called accompanied by a grunt from Sasuke.

"Anyway, I take it that you guys already finished the running and other exercises?" The jounin asked.

"Yup!" Naruto exclaimed happily. His anger at his teacher already all but forgotten.

"Well its straight off to missions then." The silver haired man stated.

That day they completed three D-ranks. Then following day was the exact same. The trio arrived at the training field and waited for Kakashi only to find that he was going to be late again. So they went through their exercises and the running. After they finished that in record time, Sasuke and Naruto plus clone began to spar. While they spared, Sakura worked on reading the medical ninjutsu scroll that Kakashi had gotten for her.

The scroll had a few things that she could learn but before she could learn any more than the two or three things she did, she realized that she had to study up on human anatomy.

After around forty minutes of Sasuke and Naruto sparing Kakashi showed up. "You're late!" Shouted Sakura, Naruto and Naruto's clone.

"Well you see, I was on my way here and I saw this little bird fall out of its nest and–"

Kakashi was cut off by and enraged call of "Liar!" from Sakura, Naruto and Naruto's clone.

The rest of the day was spent on D-rank missions. For some odd reason Naruto seemed to compline less each day. It was mostly because Kurama was trying to teach him patience and how to be level headed. It was a slow process, but it saved the rest of Squad Seven from massive headaches.

The following day went much the same. And the only thing different about the one after that was that after they finished their batch of D-rank missions Kakashi increased their weights to have thirty-five pounds on each wrist and ankle. Their routine became much harder but other than that there wasn't much of a change.


	9. C Rank

Squad Seven spent the next week and a half with the same routine. They didn't even try to wait for Kakashi in the morning anymore knowing that he would be arriving around two hours late. However the trio followed his training schedule faithfully. The amount of D-rank missions that they completed daily varied from two to five, depending on how time consuming each task was.

Naruto was overall happy with how his life had settled into the new routine. The missions, or 'chores' as he and his team had come to call them, annoying him more than almost anything else in the world. If it weren't for Kurama it would have been almost impossible to be around him while completing the chores.

The only thing those _tasks_ were good for was spending time with his dear Sakura-chan and earning the extra money. He had considered more than once using his clones to complete the missions faster, but Kurama was against it.

During his spare time, Naruto trained mostly. Kurama had helped him work out his own taijutsu style. It was basically the same thing he always did but including more blocking and dodging than what he usually did. Naruto mostly focused on attacking up front. That allowed his opponent to get behind him easily. With some training drilled into him, Naruto could now block almost any physical attack by instinct alone.

Kurama didn't want to alter his fighting that much because she knew how unpredictable the blond was. And being unpredictable was a good thing when it came to battle. So the only thing she tried to do was to give him a set of skills –which he should have gotten from his sensei– that would more likely insure his survival.

It was surprisingly easy for him to learn. When he questioned Kurama as to how that was possible, she stated that it was because he was gaining a few of the traits belonging to a fox.

Naruto's jaw dropped when he heard the words come out of the fox's mouth. "What?" He screamed, his voice echoing through the sewer they were currently standing in.

"You hear me kit." said Kurama. "You're gaining a few traits form me. Its probably due to the amount of contact you're having with me."

"But I don't wanna look like a fox!" The blond jinjuriki exclaimed.

Kurama sighed in frustration. "Of course you won't look like a fox, idiot. Its just sharper instincts, better hearing, that kind of stuff." She explained. The fox demon saw that her host was now much more excited about the prospect. "Of course you won't gain them over night. But eventually you'll be able to become a pretty decent sensor."

Kurama decided not to mention that his strength would also increase immensely. And since all of these changes in him were gradual, he would probably never notice on his own.

From the fox's perspective, she was overall happy with how Naruto's life was turning out. She had talked him into eating healthier foods now that he had the money to afford them. That in turn made his body stronger and give her less trouble to keep him away from illnesses.

Of course all that the nine tailed fox had to do was rush some of her chakra through his system while he slept to avoid him getting ill and to heal any injury he might of received from training or a certain cat. Still, the improved diet made her work a lot easier. And it also helped make Naruto's attention span a little longer.

Another thing she was happy about was his relations with his team. Sasuke was still Sasuke and he would always probably be the more quiet and stoic type. But he didn't openly show hostility towards her host or his other teammate without reason. He was also open to receive feedback on his skills and to give his own input their's in return.

The rivalry thing never stopped though. If anything it had grown more intense as the days passed. There wasn't much she could do about that but the fox was slightly grateful that they were rivals. She knew that having a rival only made them both stronger.

The other teammate was both pleasing and irritating Kurama. She was pleased with the kunoichi because she now openly accepted Naruto as a friend and tried to help him out with many things. The makeover she had given him was proving to be incredibly helpful. And having clones do his laundry, Naruto was able to keep his new and improved appearance.

But the pink haired girl was still highly irritating in the eyes of the Kyuubi. She wasn't fawning over Sasuke, which was good, but she wasn't paying much attention to Naruto in that regard either. Honestly, the girl knew that Naruto genuinely loved her, and he had even kissed her, but she made no move to upgrade their relationship.

Kurama wasn't an idiot. Even though she wasn't human, she had seen enough through mostly Kushina's eyes to know when someone liked another person. The constant blushing and fidgeting Sakura did whenever Naruto got a little close to her was a clear sign that she liked him. Of course the blond was too dense to see it, he was merely happy that the pinkette didn't hate him, but it was so frustrating for the fox.

However, the Kyuubi did have to acknowledge that perhaps the kunoichi wasn't too sure herself. One can't easily compare true love to the infatuation that she previously possessed towards the Uchiha. Kurama guessed that she would simply have to let things play out on their own between those two. Love isn't something that can be forced after all.

A little over a month had now passed since Squad Seven graduating from the Academy. They now each had a total of one-hundred and sixty pounds on their bodies. Meaning they had forty pounds on each wrist and ankle. How they were able to walk with that much weight baffled Sakura, but she was proud of herself nonetheless.

Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi were walking back from the forests on the outskirts of Konoha to the Hokage Tower. Naruto held in his arms a brown cat with a red bow on it's right ear. This cat was named Tora and it belonged to the Daimao's wife. It must have been around the thirteenth time that they had caught that cat. And each time they did it seemed to be harder to actually find and then catch the feline.

They arrived at the tower and Naruto gladly handed the cat to its owner. The owner was a round woman that wore fancy clothes and supported a lot of jewelry. She happily received her dear Tora and proceeded to strangle the poor animal. Naruto and Sakura couldn't help but smirk in the satisfaction of seeing the cat suffer.

It was still relatively early in the afternoon, so after collecting their payment, the team waited to receive their next mission. It was one of the rare days in which the Hokage was present to hand out mission. Usually he would be in his office doing paperwork, but occasionally he would help the desk chunin hand out missions, just to check up on everybody. The old man began to recite a list of chores, each more pointless and menial, let alone repulsive, than the other.

'_Kit, calm down!'_ Kurama said to her host as she saw him losing his patience. '_You won't be doing these for much longer.._.'

Her efforts were in vain though as Naruto finally snapped. "Hokage-jiji! Give us a real mission! I'm tired of these pointless chores! Come on old man!" Shouted the blond.

'_He's got a point._' Thought Sasuke, his glare fixated on the Hokage.

'_Please let Naruto convince him! I'm tired of all this crap!'_ Sakura shouted in her mind. She even crossed her fingers behind her back, hoping that luck would be on their side.

Kakashi let out an audible sigh. "Hokage-sama, I'm sorry about my student's behavior. But we both saw this coming, you should be grateful that Naruto held it in this long."

Iruka, who was sitting next to the Hokage, also snapped as his former pupil. "Naruto! How can you be so disrespectful towards Hokage-sama!" Were it any other genin, he would have scolded them for trying to take on something that they couldn't handle. But Iruka knew Naruto, and he knew, like Kakashi, that he should be grateful that the blond managed to hold off his impatience for that long. Plus, the scarred man knew that Squad Seven was more than capable.

Hiruzen took a puff from his pipe before speaking. What he spoke about had to do something or other about how missions were arranged from D-rank to A-rank and given to shinobi of different ranks or whatever. The three genin before him had lost interest. This was something that both Sasuke and Sakura already knew, and something that Naruto really didn't care about. Even Kakashi found no need to listen to his leader's lecture and managed to entertain himself with his Icha Icha book.

Only when the Hokage had finished his lecture did he notice that he had been completely ignored. He came to realize that the three genin had been discussing a fight that they seemed to have had earlier that day.

"Your dodging and blocking has improved." Sasuke said to Naruto. His voice was still in its usual unemotional state but Sarutobi Hiruzen had to hold back a gasp. Did Uchiha Sasuke just compliment someone?

Naruto smiled at his teammate and scratched the back of his head bashfully. "Yeah, I had been working on that for quite a while. I seem to have finally got it." He said happily. His arm when back to his side as he continued "Sasuke, your speed seems to have improved too. Even with my new dodging techniques, I could barely keep up with you!"

"I think it has something to do with the weights." Sakura added. "They make us use and train muscles we don't usually use as much, making our overall speed increase. I'm scared to see how fast Sasuke would be when he takes off the weights."

The Uchiha nodded. "It seems like we use our leg muscles differently while we walk then while we run, so walking with the extra eighty pounds makes our running better, even if we run carrying the same weight."

"But wait!" Naruto said, "Why didn't I get any faster then?"

"Oh you did." Answered Sakura "You just don't realize it because the progress is slower than is noticeable to one's self. Maybe if you ask–"

Sakura was cut off but the Sandaime's clearing of his throat. Naruto turned back around to face him as he had previously been facing his teammates to ask "What is it old man, finally decided to give us a real mission?"

Kakashi had looked up from his book when he heard to Hokage clear his throat and managed to catch Naruto's remark. The jonin shook his head at his student and mumbled "I'm gonna hear about this later." to himself.

Iruka couldn't help but smile to himself as he saw his old students discuss a battle like that. They were genuinely trying to help each other grow stronger. They had really become full fledged shinobi. The Hokage also chuckled lightly, realizing that the little boy he saw as a grandson had grown up.

"So be it." The elder man said. This sparked a surprised reaction from all three of the genin before him. "Since you are so determined, I'm going to give you a C-ranked mission. You'll be bodyguards on a journey."

"Really?" Asked Sakura eagerly. She failed to notice that Naruto was jumping for joy beside her, and even Sasuke had a cheery mood around him, well, as cheerful as it could get around him.

Sandaime smiled again at the reaction of the kids in front of him. "Send in our visitor!" He called.

Squad Seven all turned to the door which was positioned behind them to meet their client. The door slowly slid open to reveal a slightly older man wearing what seemed to be rags put together by a moderately skilled hand to form clothes. He had a pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose and carried a Sake bottle in his hand.

The man took a gulp of the Sake before saying "Whats this? A bunch of snot nosed kids? You expect _them_ to guard _me_? Tazuna, master bridge builder?" As he said that he took another huge swing at the Sake bottle.

The three thirteen-year-olds glared at the man, Kakashi even had to place his hand on Naruto's shoulder to make sure that the blond didn't do anything too hasty.

It was only three weeks afterwards that Squad Seven was returning from the land of waves. They were walking down a dirt path that had bushes around them and trees overhead. They would have opted to travel through the canopy, and they had been only a few minutes ago, but Sakura had suggested that they walk on the ground for a while and relax. Their spirits were high and couldn't've been higher. I mean, who wouldn't be happy after completing a C turned A-rank mission after only like two months of being genin.

Sure, there were a few moments where they feared for their lives, the first was when the Demon Brothers attacked. Naruto was sure he would of died then if it wasn't for the fox-like instincts that he had gained along with his super awesome dodging skills.

They could have also died that time when Kakashi got stuck in Momochi Zabuza's water prison jutsu. But then again, Naruto and Sasuke got the chance to show off their awesome teamwork and strategy skills. Also that fight that they had with the Hyoton user, Haku had had to have been the hardest fight in their lives. Though Sasuke enjoyed that fight in particular since he managed to unlock his almighty Sharingan in the middle of it.

And Sakura was no slouch either. The kunoichi managed to break her two teammates out of Haku's dome of mirrors just before Naruto had to resort to using Kurama's chakra. Naruto wanted to avoid using her chakra at all costs since the one time he did use it he got drunk off the power. Who knows what could happen should he gain control of a higher amount of it.

Not that Kurama wasn't helpful during the fights. On the contrary, there wasn't as second where she wasn't telling Naruto where the enemy was and what to look out for. Also, Kurama was a huge help with the training Kakashi put them through. If it weren't for Kurama's help, Naruto and Sasuke wouldn't of had time to perfect their tree climbing, let alone have time to learn water walking as well. Sakura perfecting both of those skills with ease was also a giant boost in her confidence.

Anyway, that was all behind them now. Kakashi couldn't have been prouder of his students. All three of them had grown exponentially. But he was getting slightly suspicious of the trio since they always seemed to be talking about someone named Kurama. This Kurama, in their eyes at least, was extremely powerful. And they always looked to their advice whenever they couldn't figure something out.

The jonin never noticed it before, but the name seemed to come up a lot while Naruto and Sasuke were training to climb trees with chakra. He'd have to look into it when they got back to the village. But for now he would just enjoy reading his Icha Icha Paradise book as they peacefully made their way back to Konoha.

Naruto was walking with his arms linked behind his head in a cheerful manner. There was a clear smile on his face as he walked in between Sakura and Sasuke. All three of them were in complete silence so Naruto took the chance to talk with Kurama.

'_Hey Kurama, do you think I did well in this mission?_' He asked innocently.

'_Of course I do kit.'_ The great fox responded. Naruto could practically feel the joy and pride she held in him. '_You could work on being a little more perspective, but in action you're almost flawless. Well, at least for a genin you are._' She said with a chuckle.

'_Well thats just it..._' The blond thought to her, '_I'm still just a genin. I want to know what I can do to be able to fight against chunin and even jonin._'

Naruto became confused when he heard the Kyuubi chuckle. '_Kit, you honestly didn't realize that the Demon Brothers were chunin. Zabuza was a jonin and that Haku kid I can't be sure but its probably either chunin or jonin.'_

The blond blinked a few times, the smile still not leaving his face before he chuckled inwardly, just for Kurama to hear. '_I'm so awesome._' He said to her. '_But still, how can I get stronger? I want to become Hokage remember._'

Kurama giggled at her host for a bit before beginning to answer his question. '_I think the main thing you can do right now is expand your jutsu library. The Kage Bunshin _(shadow clone) _and Henge _(transformation) _are great, but they do sort of limit your arsenal.'_ She told him. '_Maybe if you bug Kakashi enough he'll teach you something new or–'_ She abruptly stopped mid-sentence.

Her sudden halt caused Naruto to expand his senses to locate some sort of danger. He didn't know how, but he just knew that there was some big guy with a sword about to pounce on Sakura.

With speed he didn't know he had, Naruto crouched down himself using his left hand to softly hit the back of Sakura's knees causing her to fall. Her back landed on the blond's right arm and her legs remained in place on his left. Naruto brought her to his chest as she finally let out a gasp. He didn't pause, not even for a second as he jumped backwards into the air, narrowly avoiding the giant sword of a large man.

Sakura had no clue what was happening. One second she was peacefully walking back to her village in the clam company of her two teammates and sensei; then the next she was falling, and not even a mili-second after that; she felt warm arms around her. The only thing she managed to do was gasp as she fell and look up to see Naruto looking in front of him with a very serious expression.

Before she could even ask something, she heard Sasuke shout out. She looked to where the sound was coming from to see him kick a large man in the face. She looked slightly downwards to find a giant sword where she had previously been standing.

Time seemed to slow down around her as she looked back up to Naruto. The realization finally hit her. She would have died had it not been for the blond that held her in his arms. She could have died less than a minute ago. Her eyes widened in shock as she clung to Naruto's t-shirt.

Naruto easily landed from the leap he made to get away from the man. As soon as his feet touched the floor, he saw Sasuke already taking action to knock out the man. With a swift kick to the face, the man collapsed on the ground, unconscious. Sasuke also took the liberty to tie him up, just in case.

He turned to Kakashi to see that he had disappeared. '_Kurama, do you know where Kakashi-sensei is?'_ He asked her, the safety of his team being his main priority at the moment.

Kurama quickly sent some chakra out to scan the area before she informed '_He went out to take care of the other three guys that were still hiding in the bushes._' And true to her words, only a few seconds after her voice echoed in his mind, three other men hit the ground beside the first, already unconscious and tied up.

That was when Naruto felt Sakura grab onto his shirt. He looked down at her to see her emerald eyes wide open in shock. "Sakura-chan?" he asked in a whisper.

Sakura heard her name being called by a sweet and tender voice, but the idea that she could have died just seconds before overcame the need to answer that voice. She heard her name being called again, followed by a slight shake of her shoulders. She blinked, and then looked up to him.

Seeing her look at him made Naruto smile. "Are you alright?" He asked her.

"Yeah..." She answered softly. It was then that she finally accepted it. Sure, she could have died a few seconds ago. But she could have died at any time during the battles again Zabuza. It was more likely that she would of died at the hand of such a high skilled shinobi than at the hand of these lowly bandits.

The pink haired kunoichi closed her eyes and sighed. She had decided to become a kunoichi of Konoha. To fight for Konoha, to risk her life for Konoha, and to probably even die to protect Konoha. The risk of almost dying is something that she should get used to. She should even be happy about it. She almost died. Almost.

"Yeah Naruto, I'm fine. Just a little shaken up is all." She said now a slight smile on her face. She sighed and pressed her head against his chest her eyes slowly closing. His shirt was now released from the clutches of her hand. '_Naruto..._' She thought.

The blond was happy, how his presence seemed to calm her down. He smiled as he watched her breathe slowly against his chest.

"Naruto!" He looked up to see that Sasuke had called his name. "Is Sakura okay?"

The jinjuriki was slightly irked that their little moment was interrupted, but he answered his teammate nonetheless. "She's fine, just a little shocked."

"That was pretty quick action on your part Naruto." Kakashi said. "If it weren't for you, Sakura would have probably died or been seriously injured."

"Yeah." Naruto said. He looked down at the girl who was still almost sleeping in his arms, even though he knew she was awake before turning to his sensei. "But shouldn't you have noticed them first? Kakashi-sensei, aren't you supposed to be the jonin that is an expert on everything and stuff?" He shouted.

Kakashi took a step away from his student. "Now now, Naruto." he chuckled nervously "Calm down, I have an explanation. This was all a test. Yeah thats it! This was all a test to see if you could react properly. And..." the jonin paused to chuckle nervously again holding his arms up in front of him as a sort of defense. "And you pass!"

"Liar!" Shouted Naruto.

"Naruto is right Kakashi." Said Sasuke while glaring at his sensei. "You were so absorbed in that porn book that you didn't even notice that we were being followed."

Well, the squad had indeed discovered that the book that Kakashi always read was porn on one of their many attempts to see his real face. Of course he had received a huge lump on the head, courtesy of Sakura, but they didn't give him much trouble for it. Now on the other hand, Sasuke made sure to give Kakashi double the beating because Naruto was still holding and comforting Sakura, and thus his hands were busy.

The jonin didn't fight back, though he easily could have. He was pretty disappointed with himself. He had failed to protect his students and comrades. He deserved every punch that Sasuke delivered and even more, but he also couldn't have been prouder of Naruto. Who knew he could act so fast in a situation of dire need?

Sakura was aware of all the commotion going on around her. What with Kakashi's shouts of pain, Sasuke's battle cries and Naruto's shouts of encouragement to Sasuke, who in the world could ignore that? Even a deaf person wouldn't be able to tear their eyes away from it all. But Sakura was at peace in Naruto's warm arms. She just wanted to relish in the feel of them. The sound of his deep heartbeat and how his voice made his chest vibrate. It just felt to right to her.

However, everything must come to an end and this was no exception. Sasuke eventually felt that he had made his sensei suffer enough and ceased beating him. And as soon as that happened, Naruto asked Sakura if she could walk.

The kunoichi reluctantly said that she could because otherwise it would cause them all to worry more than they had to. Naruto set her down slowly and she was able to stand as if nothing happened. Because nothing really did happen to her. At least not physically. It was mentally that she was a little shaken up, but physically she was perfect.

Even with the weights, she could stand straight. She pumped chakra into her limbs to make the weights a little easier on her, but that was already almost like a reflex to her when she stood.

Kurama confirmed that the men that attacked them were nothing but bandits because of their close to nonexistent chakra reserves. Then the team made their way back to Konoha through the trees even though Kakashi was having a little more trouble than he should due to Sasuke's beating.

Before they knew it, Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi stood in front of the gates to Konoha. A dignified red arch with the kanji for 'fire' spelled proudly on it.

* * *

><p><strong>Yea, so I decided to skip the Wave Arc. You know why? Well, I read the thing a billion times in other fics and I'm pretty sick of it. I skim through it most of the time just to see if they do anything different, but I told you guys what happened different in my story when they were looking back on what happened or whatever. Other than that its the same as in canon. Anyway, I hope you like it =D<strong>


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